Democratized innovation & accessible thermal testing: The approachable hot box
Date
2023-01-06
Authors
Major Professor
Advisor
Committee Member
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Abstract
To meet the goals established by the 2015 Paris Accord, scientists say that we will need to achieve zero emissions between 2030 and 2050, which will require a drastic departure from current practices in the building industry, as buildings are a primary contributor of carbon emissions and a major consumer of natural resources. However, building technology research is often driven by disciplinary ‘experts’ and end-users have little opportunity for involvement in the design process. As buildings become more technologically complex, users must rely on industry professionals with specialized knowledge to design, manufacture and manage these increasingly complex environments Instead, this paper provides an alternative attitude to approachable research methods that open up building technology innovation opportunities to untraditional innovators. When the user has control of the design/innovation process, it opens up a new realm of possibilities rich with lived experience.
Understanding the movement of heat, or thermal transmittance, through materials and assemblies is critical in controlling energy consumption in buildings. Despite recent advances in computational technologies, physical testing is still the industry standard to determine a material’s thermal properties. However, this process can require expensive equipment, a controlled environment for testing and deep technical knowledge to create a degree of accuracy that is not necessary for all phases of the innovation process and can even act as a barrier to the early stages of design. In this paper we propose the Approachable Hot Box (AHB), a low-cost, low-tech and accessible testing apparatus that can quickly and easily evaluate the impact of simple building materials and assemblies on ambient environmental conditions. By reducing unnecessary complexity for early-level design decisions, the AHB is consistent and reliable at an affordable price. Not only does the AHB rapidly and affordably test small material samples, it helps to articulate potentially complex concepts in a tangible and understandable way, which helps to lower the barrier to innovation. By creating a non-disciplinary, iterative design approach that uses conventional materials and accessible concepts, this work demonstrates that rapid experimentation can be used as a tool to study building assemblies or systems by non-traditional innovators.
Series Number
Journal Issue
Is Version Of
Versions
Series
Academic or Administrative Unit
Type
article
Comments
This manuscript is published as Elizabeth McCormick, Chengde Wu, Mary Grayson Roberts, and Ok-Kyun Im. (2023). Democratized Innovation & Accessible Thermal Testing: The Approachable Hot Box. Energy and Buildings. 281(Feb 15 2023);112769. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2022.112769. Posted with permission.