Creating A Thermal Insulation Material in IESVE

In this video, Dr. Karaguzel demonstrates a quick way to create a custom envelope assembly with a custom thermal insulation material using the IESVE 2021 software.

In this Youtube tutorial, I explained a IESVE-based modeling process where users can create a custom opaque envelope assembly which contains a custom thermal insulation material layer. Here is the summary of this modeling process:

1. Find out a ASHRAE 90.1-compliant construction assembly from the “Project Construction” database. This will be the base assembly to be customized. Users are totally free to choose any assembly to customize. My selection here is a steel framed exterior wall assembly with R-13 + R3.8ci (U-factor = 0.084 IP) which is compliant for the ASHRAE Climate Zone 5A (e.g., Pittsburgh, PA).
2. Duplicate the selected assembly. You will see that the data source information will be changed from “ASHRAE 90.1” to “Generic” where generic means user defined and not coming from a template (prototype library).
3. Customize the name of the duplicated assembly (e.g., OMERS-NEW-Wall).
4. Double click on the “ID” to see overall thermo-physical properties and to be able to modify the construction assemblies that constitute the assembly.
5. Review the overall thermo-physical properties of the base assembly (which is the exact duplicate of the ASHRAE 90.1-compliant assembly) such as U-value, Total R-Value, Thickness, Mass, and Thermal Mass.
6. Select one of the construction layers to be customized. Here I select the “Continuous Insulation Layer R-3.8” which will be the base material layer to be customized while create a new thermal insulation material.
7. Hit the “Project Materials” which will open up the project materials list.
8. Duplicate the pre-selected “Continuous Insulation Layer R-3.8” within the project materials by clicking on the “Add Project Material”.
9. Scroll down to the bottom of the current list to see the new entry.
10. The new creation is totally open to modifications first of which is to customize its name (such as Omers-Vacuum-Insulation).
11. Focus only on the three fundamental thermo-physical properties of the material under consideration (which are Conductivity, Density and Specific Heat).
12. Manually enter the three key physical properties that you have found from an external resource (literature review or from manufacturer’s specs or from the library of another simulation program).
13. Copy the selected material after entering all the required properties.
14. Close the “Project Materials” dialog box.
15. Hit the “Insert” button to include the newly updated and re-named thermal insulation material into the line-up of the current construction layers.
17. Review the overall thermo-physical properties of your custom construction assembly again to see the differences (have a look at U-value, Total R-Value, Thickness, Mass, and Thermal Mass).