United States. Fort Drum is the site of an Army Corps engineer project that will test a new high-performance insulation technology for buildings designed to retain heat inside more effectively and with greater cost savings.
The energy loss is estimated to cost the U.S. Department of Defense about $200 million a year and accounts for 5% of the total cost of energy at military installations. The Fort Drum Energy Branch is working with the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL), in a research laboratory at the Army Corps of Engineers, to carry out an energy efficiency project using two military buildings.
Tapan Patel, director of the CERL project, was nominated to observe and help with the installation of the new insulation. He said the goal of this research is to demonstrate and validate the energy efficiency and cost of a high-performance insulation technology called Modified Atmosphere Isolation (MAI).
"MAI represents a new generation of advanced thermal insulation with the performance of silica-based vacuum insulation panels and the cost significantly reduced," Patel said. "This technology has a huge potential benefit for the Army and the Department of Defense."
Mai panels were installed on the outside of the walls of the test building and then coated with metal cladding. An exterior retrofit allows easier access and installation, with minimal disturbance inside the building. A certain degree of caution is necessary not to damage the vacuum-sealed panels, since they were attached to the walls.
The modified atmosphere insulation has a rating of RR of 38 per inch, while the original wall material meter measures a value of R-19 with six inches of fiberglass. Each inch of the AMI is equivalent to 17 inches of fiberglass insulation.
