Design and evaluation of thermal insulation of air layer for sentry building envelopes

The prevalence of small-scale structures, such as sentry buildings, has become widespread, with many of these buildings exposed to the outdoor environment and exhibiting suboptimal thermal insulation in their envelopes. Through a comprehensive study of outdoor disturbances, the most unfavourable envelope was identified. In light of this finding, we have designed static air layer sentry buildings (SAL-SB) and dynamic air layer sentry buildings (DAL-SB). The study conducted experiments and numerical simulations to evaluate the impact of air layer thickness, vent opening forms, and inlet velocities on the thermal insulation of sentry buildings. The results showed that both the SAL and DAL effectively improved thermal insulation, and a thickness of 25 cm has been found to offer the best thermal insulation. However, considering the balance between thermal insulation and cost-effectiveness, a thickness of 15 cm is recommended. Additionally, for DAL, an inlet velocity of 3 m/s is the threshold for switching the heat transfer direction on the roof. These findings provide novel insights into enhancing the thermal environment.