smartskinreal

Cooling energy accounts for a significant proportion of a building’s primary energy requirements. By using shading that is efficient and tailored to the room and its use, solar gain can be reduced to such an extent that cooling energy requirements are cut by up to 75%. In the preliminary project smart^skin, the feasibility of an energy-self-sufficient, low-maintenance sun protection system was successfully demonstrated on a laboratory scale. The control and actuation of shading elements are achieved using shape memory alloys (SMA).

The smart^skinreal project – following on from the predecessor project smart^skin – is dedicated to the application-specific development of self-sufficient shading systems and their components, the large-scale testing and validation of the technologies under real-world conditions, and the development of technological configuration tools. The sun protection systems to be developed in the project are intended to function without motors, relying solely on thermal SMEs. This will reduce the operating and maintenance costs of the sun protection to a minimum.

A key objective is to develop software-based tools for designing the individual system details. In future, these will enable all system components to be customised according to the specific requirements of the building project. This means that site-specific requirements arising from the installation situation and the local climate will influence the design just as much as the building’s use or user behaviour.