**Thermal Behaviour, Energy Efficiency in Buildings and Sustainable Construction**

Editor

**Paulo Santos**

MDPI • Basel • Beijing • Wuhan • Barcelona • Belgrade • Manchester • Tokyo • Cluj • Tianjin

*Editor* Paulo Santos Department of Civil Engineering, ISISE University of Coimbra Coimbra Portugal

*Editorial Office* MDPI St. Alban-Anlage 66 4052 Basel, Switzerland

This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal *Energies* (ISSN 1996-1073) (available at: www.mdpi.com/journal/energies/special issues/Buildings and Sustainable Construction).

For citation purposes, cite each article independently as indicated on the article page online and as indicated below:

LastName, A.A.; LastName, B.B.; LastName, C.C. Article Title. *Journal Name* **Year**, *Volume Number*, Page Range.

**ISBN 978-3-0365-1175-7 (Hbk) ISBN 978-3-0365-1174-0 (PDF)**

© 2021 by the authors. Articles in this book are Open Access and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications.

The book as a whole is distributed by MDPI under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND.

### **Contents**


#### **Victor Lohmann and Paulo Santos**


**Paola Marrone, Francesco Asdrubali, Daniela Venanzi, Federico Orsini, Luca Evangelisti, Claudia Guattari, Roberto De Lieto Vollaro, Lucia Fontana, Gianluca Grazieschi, Paolo Matteucci and Marta Roncone**

On the Retrofit of Existing Buildings with Aerogel Panels: Energy, Environmental and Economic Issues

Reprinted from: *Energies* **2021**, *14*, 1276, doi:10.3390/en14051276 ................... **405**

### **About the Editor**

#### **Paulo Santos**

Paulo Santos [ORCID 0000-0002-0134-6762] is Assist. Prof. in Dep. of Civil Eng. of University of Coimbra, PT. He is a member of the ISISE (Institute for Sustainability and Innovation in Structural Engineering) research centre. His main current scientific research fields are Thermal Behaviour, Energy Efficiency in Buildings and Sustainable Construction. He is author of around 150 scientific publications and has been supervisor of around 50 Doctoral and master's theses. He participated in around 12 funded European and Portuguese research projects, now being the Principal Investigator of the Tyre4BuildIns: "Recycled tyre rubber resin-bonded for building insulation systems towards energy efficiency"research project. Furthermore, he is a member of iiSBE: International Initiative for a Sustainable Built Environment (2011,-) and Technical Committee TC14: Sustainability and Eco-efficiency of Steel Construction of the ECCS: European Convention for Constructional Steelwork (2008,-).

### **Preface to "Thermal Behaviour, Energy Efficiency in Buildings and Sustainable Construction"**

Nowadays, energy and sustainability are two of the major concerns of mankind. Given the relevant energy consumption share of the buildings sector, it is very important to search for innovative design solutions and for the optimal thermal performance of buildings to reduce energy bills and greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining the comfort levels of the occupants. Additionally, given the environmental burdens of the construction sector, seeking more environmentally responsible processes and a more efficient use of resources are currently attracting more attention.

This Special Issue (SI), published in the *Energies* journal, is dedicated to the analysis of recent advances in the following issues: (1) thermal behavior improvement of a building's elements (e.g., walls, floors, roofs, windows, doors, etc.), (2) energy efficiency in buildings, and (3) sustainable construction. The main goal is to compile scientific works within these topics, making use of different possible research approaches, such as experimental, theoretical, numerical, analytical, computational, case studies, and their combinations. This book compiles a set of original research works with academic excellence and scientific soundness.

The guest editor would like to express their sincere and deep gratitude for all of the scientific contributions from the authors among prestigious worldwide scientists as well as to the reviewers who significantly contributed to improving the quality of the manuscripts. Moreover, here, we express our acknowledgments to the research project Tyre4BuildIns—"Recycled tyre rubber resinbonded for building insulation systems towards energy efficiency", supported by FEDER funds through the Competitivity Factors Operational Programme—COMPETE and by national funds through FCT—Foundation for Science and Technology, within the scope of the project POCI-01-0145- FEDER-032061, which allowed the contribution of three scientific articles to this SI. Additionally, the guest editor also wants to thank the support provided by the following companies, partners of the research project Tyre4BuildIns: Pertecno, Gyptec Ib´eria, Volcalis, Sotinco, Kronospan, Hulkseflux, Hilti, and Metabo.

> **Paulo Santos** *Editor*

*Article*
