Research and practice: Modulating light and temperature with fluidglass facades
Glass facades with inner circulating fluids (so-called 'fluidglass facades') can reduce the energy demand of buildings, increase user comfort, as well as capture thermal energy from the sun and store it within buildings. The basic idea is to circulate fluids between the glazing planes of transparent facades in order to control the flow of energy between the inside and the outside of buildings. Currently, there are several research groups exploring this topic, including the EU project consortium 'Fluidglass' [1], which the three authors are members of. The fluidglass unit developed in the EU project consists of two fluid conducting layers with a total of five panes of glass, each 6 mm thick (fig. 1).
