High performance curtain wall mullion section design with various densities of gyroid

The thermal bridge problem in building fagades has become a topic of interest as the energy performance of building enclosure design required improvements with a global lead in sustainable building design. Curtain wall fagade systems are widely used for recent high-rise buildings, and the thermal bridge issue occurs mainly within the aluminum frame of the curtain wall system. In addition to the thermal bridging effects, the conventional curtain wall fagade designs have limitations in increasing the stiffness of the mullion. As to address the lack of an innovative solution to solve both issues, this thesis proposes utilizing a cellular structure in mullion design. In particular, this thesis has selected a single-gyroid structure, which is an open cell foam structure that has the minimum surface area necessary to span a region of space. The thesis explores various aspects of the application that extend from a rapid modeling method of gyroid structure, experiments, and simulations along with theoretical values for mechanical and thermal properties of gyroid, to topology optimization of the various densities of gyroid in the composite structure. The results are expected to improve the curtain wall designs with future experimental verifications.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Kang, Min Jeong, M. Eng. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Caitlin T. Mueller and Zhao Qin.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/107061

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/107061