Conflation of thermal bridginig assessment and building thermal simulation

The legislation and energy awareness have lead to increased thermal insulation levels in buildings. Consequently, heat flow, between the indoor and outdoor environments, due to thermal bridging is forming an increasing fraction of building thermal load. Accurate thermal bridging assessment is becoming more important not only to predict the heat flow, but also to predict the level of condensation and mould growth in the heating season. This paper presents a thermal bridging assessment module that is integrated within a state-of-the-art, whole building simulation environment in order to have more pragmatic boundary conditions.