The Study of Long-Term Performance Evaluation of Vacuum Insulation Panel(VIP) with Accelerated Aging Test

Energy efficiency solutions are being pursued as a sustainable approach to reducing energy consumption and related gas emissions across various sectors of the economy. Vacuum Insulation Panel (VIP) is an energy efficient advanced insulation system that facilitates slim but high-performance insulation, based on a porous core material evacuated and encapsulated in a barrier envelope. Although VIP has been applied in buildings for over a decade, it wasn't until recently that efforts have been initiated to propose and adopt a global standard on characterization and testing of VIP. One of the issues regarding VIP is its durability and aging due to pressure and moisture dependent increase of the initial low thermal conductivity with time; more so in building applications. In this paper, the aging of commercially available VIP was investigated experimentally; thermal conductivity was tested in accordance with ISO 8302 standard (guarded hot box method) and long-term durability was estimated based on a non-linear pressure-humidity dependent equation based on study of IEA/ECBCS Annex 39, with the aim of assessing durability of VIP for use in buildings. The center-of-panel thermal conductivity after 25 years based on initial 90% fractile with a confidence level of 90% for the thermal conductivity (λ90/90) ranged from 0.00726–0.00814 (W/m K) for silica core VIP. Significant differences between manufacturerprovided data and measurements of thermal conductivity and internal pressure were observed.