Applied Thermal Engineering 22 (2002) 989–998

www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Minimizing thermal bridging through window systems

in buildings of hot regions
Abdullatif E. Ben-Nakhi *

College of Technological Studies––Kuwait, P.O. Box 3665, 22037 Salmiya, Kuwait

Received 1 August 2001; accepted 16 November 2001

Abstract
This paper is concerned with minimizing thermal bridging through typical window systems in buildings
of hot regions. The present approach is based on an integrated 3D dynamic simulation. The theoretical
background of the adopted approach is presented. The reliability of this approach in evaluating thermal
bridges as well as its applicability to different geometric shapes is proved. It is found that the thermal
bridging through typical window systems is significant and should be taken into account in buildings de-
sign. Applicable construction for window systems are proposed to minimize thermal bridging in the
buildings of hot regions. Ó 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Thermal bridging; Numerical modeling; Integrated building simulation; Window design

1. Introduction

In general, the heat flow through a building construction is considered to be of the one-
dimensional (1D) type [1], i.e., it is assumed to be in the direction perpendicular to the wall. This is
because the thermal conductance and temperature differential in this direction are much greater
than that in the lateral directions. However, localized multi-dimensional heat conduction through
the building envelope is common. The thermal bridge is the part of the building envelope through
which heat conduction is multi-dimensional. Therefore, in recent studies, the problem of heat
conduction in the building construction has been treated as a multi-dimensional.
The multi-dimensional character of heat conduction affects the local temperature distribution
and heat flow rate. In other words, thermal bridging will bring the internal surface temperature

*
Fax: +965-561-8866.
E-mail address: abdnakhi@paaet.edu.kw (A.E. Ben-Nakhi).

1359-4311/02/$ - see front matter Ó 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 1 3 5 9 - 4 3 1 1 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 1 2 1 - 1
990 A.E. Ben-Nakhi / Applied Thermal Engineering 22 (2002) 989–998

nearer to the environment temperature on the other side, and causes higher heat flow between the
two environments. While the internal surface temperature should be considered in a condensation
risk assessment during heating season, higher heat flow rate should be taken into account during
the design of buildings and their year round environmental control systems.
In general, thermal bridges occur due to one or more of the following reasons:

1. Change in thermal properties of building envelope in the lateral direction.

2. Change in construction thickness.
3. Difference between the internal and external surface areas.
4. Heat storage or generation within building construction.

In hot regions such as Kuwait, where building walls are thick and thermally insulated, the
thermal resistance in the perpendicular direction may be comparable to that in the lateral di-
rection. Hence, heat conduction in the building construction may be considered multi-dimen-
sional, and consequently, there is a high potential for thermal bridging through the envelop of
buildings of hot regions.
Traditionally, building thermal bridge is analyzed by either utilizing printed or electronic
building thermal catalogues 1 [2], or employing general-purpose numerical analysis packages such
as N A S T R A N [3]. Beside other deficiencies, both approaches are not capable to incorporate the
real-time-dynamic boundary conditions. More recently, dynamic building energy simulation tools
with 3D conduction capabilities [4,5] have been employed to analyze thermal bridging through
opaque building constructions [6,7]. However, the previous works on thermal bridging through
window systems were either not based on fully integrated 3D dynamic simulation, or did not
consider (or accurately model) the heat flow through glazing materials.
The numerical study presented in this paper is done based on the integrated 3D dynamic
simulation technique, where the different interacting heat transfer mechanisms are taken into
account. That is, the technique considers the significant heat flow paths, such conduction, con-
vection and internal and external radiation, as well as their dynamic interrelations in a dynamic
manner.

2. Theoretical background

Thermal bridging affects the inside surface temperature, and the heat flow through the building
construction. Accordingly, there are two factors commonly used to assess the harshness of
thermal bridging. These two factors are the temperature factor (f ) and linear thermal transmit-
tance parameter (W) [8]. The dimensionless temperature factor is a minimal inside surface tem-
perature, which can be estimated by
Tis; min  To
f ¼ ð1Þ
Ti  To

1
Building thermal catalogues contain detailed sketches of different building components, with some thermal data.
 A.E. Ben-Nakhi / Applied Thermal Engineering 22 (2002) 989–998 991

where Tis; min is the minimum inside surface temperature, while Ti and To are the inside and outside
air temperatures, respectively. This f-factor gives an estimate of the quality of the thermal
bridging without dependence on the imposed boundary conditions, so it is used as a parameter to
evaluate the surface condensation risk. 2 However, this type of condensation risk is not common
to occur in the buildings of hot regions, so it is excluded from the present work. Since the current
work is concerned only with the actual heat flow through window systems, only the W-value is
monitored in this numerical study.
The linear thermal transmittance, W is calculated by
Q3D  Q1D
W¼ ð2Þ
DTL
where L is the length of thermal bridge (m); DT , the temperature difference between the indoor
and outdoor environments (°C); Q1D , the heat flow rate calculated by 1D-calculation (W); Q3D ,
the heat flow rate calculated by 3D-solution (W), which is given in the form
Q3D ¼ nDT ð3Þ
where the thermal coupling coefficient n can be calculated by
X
n X
m
n ¼ n1D þ nmulti-D ¼ Ui Ai þ Wj L j ð4Þ
i¼1 j¼1

where n1D is n for the 1D heat flow through the building envelope; nmulti-D , the n for the 3D heat
flow through thermal bridges; Ui , the thermal transmittance of the ith part of the building en-
velope (W/m2 K); Ai , the area over which the Ui value applies (m2 ); Wj , the linear thermal
transmittance of the jth linear bridge (W/m K); Lj , the length over which the Wj value applies (m).
The letters (n) and (m) are, respectively, the total number of thermally homogeneous parts and
the thermal bridges of the building envelope. For a construction with only one type of linear
thermal bridge, W can be estimated by
P
Q3D  DT ni¼1 Ui Ai Q3D  Q1D
W¼ P ¼ P ð5Þ
DT mj¼1 Lj DT mj¼1 Lj

3. Thermal performance of common window systems

A window system includes the glazing, window frame and surrounding wall. Based on their
thermophysical properties, there are several window systems. While most windows are single
glazed with aluminum frame, three types of wall constructions are common in Kuwait: classical,
sandwich, and aerated autoclaved concrete (AAC) walls, as shown in Fig. 1. The thermophysical
properties of all materials considered in this study are given in Table 1, and the optical properties
of glazing material are presented in Table 2. These data are used as input data for the simulation
program.

2
The evaluation criterion is f P 0:7 which means that there is no or low condensation risk.
992 A.E. Ben-Nakhi / Applied Thermal Engineering 22 (2002) 989–998

Fig. 1. Schematics showing cross-sections of common window systems in Kuwait.

Table 1
Thermophysical properties of test cell construction materials
Description Conductivity Density Heat capacity Emissivity Absorptivity
(W/m °C) (kg/m3 ) (J/kg °C)
Sand lime brick 1.310 1918.0 795.3 0.900 0.650
Insulation 0.032 30.0 1214.0 0.900 0.650
Cement mortar 1.000 2085.0 837.0 0.900 0.500
Cement block 1.640 2011.0 921.0 0.900 0.500
Polished marble 2.600 2600.0 880.0 0.930 0.460
Aluminum frame [11] 13.800 2700.0 880.0 0.220 0.200
Glass (single) 1.050 2500.0 750.0 0.830 0.050
Glass (double) 0.760 2710.0 837.0 0.830 0.050
Wooden frame 0.130 900.0 2000.0 0.910 0.700
Concrete beam 1.77 2297.0 921.0 0.900 0.650
Cement plaster 1.000 2085.0 837.0 0.900 0.500
AAC block 0.145 489.0 879.0 0.900 0.500
Resistive marble 1.300 2600.0 880.0 0.930 0.460

Table 2
Optical properties of glazing materials
Glazing type Description Data at five angles
0° 40° 55° 70° 80°
Single glazing Transmission 0.819 0.802 0.761 0.621 0.376
Absorption for the 4 mm clear glass 0.106 0.116 0.124 0.129 0.125
Double glazing Transmission 0.676 0.651 0.604 0.441 0.201
Absorption for the 4 mm clear glass 0.113 0.124 0.134 0.148 0.154
Absorption for the 10 mm air gap 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005
Absorption for the 4 mm clear glass 0.087 0.094 0.097 0.087 0.062

A 5-m width  5-m depth  3-m height test cell was numerically created with a window in-
stalled in the front wall (cf., Fig. 2). The site latitude and longitude are assumed to be of Kuwait
city (i.e., 29.3° latitude, and 47.9° longitude). An ideal control is assumed for the air conditioning
system with cooling set point of 24 °C. The window and the wall surrounding it are considered
 A.E. Ben-Nakhi / Applied Thermal Engineering 22 (2002) 989–998 993

Fig. 2. Test cell dimensions.

exposed to the outside ambient. However, the remaining surfaces of walls, ceiling, and floor are
assumed adiabatic. Thus, the calculated cooling load represents the heat flux through the front
wall and the window within it (i.e. the window system).
The outside environment was defined by using a climatic file based on a typical meteorological
year (TMY) for Kuwait [9]. The TMY file was used to produce a hypothetical day for August,
which is the harshest month in the TMY. All the hourly varying parameters in the hypothetical
day are taken as the mean values for the specific hour in August. Otherwise, if the TMY was
directly used, a comparison between the results of different studied cases would be more com-
plicated due to the high thermal capacitance of construction considered. It should be noted that
this climatic approach preserves the dynamic nature of the external boundary conditions con-
trolling the building thermal load. The climatic parameters considered here are: dry bulb tem-
perature, relative humidity, direct and diffuse solar intensity, and magnitude and direction of wind
speed (cf., Table 3).
In order to study the effect of window orientation on the thermal bridge, different orientations
for the test cell were considered, which are the east, the west, the north and the south. On the other
hand, the effect of the external boundary of the other surfaces on the test cells was also examined.
This was achieved by performing a second set of simulations for all test cells without considering
the internal longwave radiation. The cases of neglecting internal longwave radiation are used to
emulate the effect of replacing all the adiabatic boundaries of the test cell with external bound-
aries.
In this investigation, a state-of-the-art whole building environmental performance simulation
package ESP-r [10] was employed. ESP-r was used to calculate Q3D and Q1D separately. Then at
each timeP step (i.e. hour) W-value was calculated from Eq. (5). The total length for the thermal
bridge, ni¼1 Li , is equal to the perimeter of the window–wall interface. The temperature differ-
ence, DT , is equal to the difference between the external temperature at that time step and the
indoor temperature (i.e. 24 °C).
The simulation results of the three tested types of window systems commonly used in Kuwait
are presented in Fig. 3. The classical construction has the highest values of thermal bridging, while
AAC construction has the lowest values. This is because the exposed surface area of marble layer
between thermal insulation layer and window frame is the greatest in the classical construction
and the smallest in AAC construction as the AAC block is a thermal insulation material.
994 A.E. Ben-Nakhi / Applied Thermal Engineering 22 (2002) 989–998

Table 3
Daily climatic parameters used to define summer in hot regions
Time (h) Dry bulb Relative Direct normal Diffuse solar Prevailing Wind direction
temperature (°C) humidity (%) solar intensity on the hori- wind speed (clockwise degrees
(W/m2 ) zontal (W/m2 ) (m/s) from north)
1 34.4 55 0 0 3.6 233
2 33.9 57 0 0 3.8 240
3 33.4 57 0 0 3.4 214
4 33.1 57 0 0 3.5 214
5 32.6 57 0 0 3.4 214
6 32.3 55 30 20 3.5 226
7 32.8 54 279 94 3.5 235
8 34.1 53 501 143 3.7 229
9 35.6 51 607 176 3.6 221
10 37.2 49 677 200 3.3 210
11 39.0 46 722 210 3.3 168
12 40.9 42 729 222 3.4 143
13 42.2 39 722 226 3.6 131
14 42.9 38 696 223 3.9 147
15 43.2 39 598 217 4 164
16 43.0 39 496 201 4.1 154
17 41.9 42 359 158 4.2 140
18 40.5 44 148 85 4 136
19 38.9 47 15 17 3.9 166
20 37.8 50 0 0 3.5 167
21 37.2 50 0 0 3.2 183
22 36.4 53 0 0 3.5 192
23 35.5 55 0 0 3.5 216
24 34.9 56 0 0 3.5 215

Regarding to the cooling load, it was found that the sandwich construction has the lowest
values. So, for a single glazed window with aluminum frame, it is the most suitable one for hot
regions compared with the other constructions.
It was shown that the case neglecting the internal longwave radiation has higher values of
thermal bridging compared with those of the case considering the internal longwave radiation.

Fig. 3. W-values for the three common window systems.

 A.E. Ben-Nakhi / Applied Thermal Engineering 22 (2002) 989–998 995

Fig. 4. The effect of geometric dimensions of test cell on W parameter.

Because the internal longwave radiation reduces the internal surface temperature of the window
system as the internal surface temperature of the remaining constructions is approximately 24 °C.
It is also noticed that the effect of orientation on the W-value is similar to that on the cooling
load. That is, the orientations can be sorted in ascending order as north, south, east, and west for
which the actual cooling load and W have the highest values. However, the effect of orientation on
DQ is varied because DQ relates between two orientation dependent terms: thermal bridging rate
(Q3D  Q1D ), and 1D cooling load.

4. Generality of W factor

To examine the generality of W approach (i.e., its independence on the geometric dimensions
and, consequently, the shape of the test cell), three tests have been performed. In each test, one of
the geometric dimensions of the classical construction test cell was changed. These changes are as
follows:

1. Wall dimensions: front wall width is reduced equally from both sides to 3.5 m.
2. Room dimensions: room size is changed to 5-m width  10-m depth  3-m height.
3. Window dimensions: window size is reduced to 1-m width  1-m height.

In all tests, the results of neglecting the internal longwave radiation show that the W-values are
independent of test cell dimensions, despite of the change in cooling load values (cf., Fig. 4). But
considering the internal longwave radiation are found to be dependent on test cell dimensions.
Because of the dependence of longwave radiation on the area of interacting surfaces. On the other
hand, the results of neglecting or considering the internal longwave radiation show that the DQ
values are dependent on test cell dimensions.

5. Energy conservation measures

The effect of some familiar energy conservation procedures on thermal bridging severity has
been examined. The following modifications were considered for the classical window system:
996 A.E. Ben-Nakhi / Applied Thermal Engineering 22 (2002) 989–998

Fig. 5. The effect of three basic energy conservation measures on W-values.

1. Double glazing: replacing single glazing with double glazing.

2. Wooden frame: replacing aluminum frame with wooden frame.
3. Thermal break: inserting 1-cm thick thermal break within the aluminum frame.

It was found that all modifications lead to lower values of thermal load, evaluated by 1D or 3D
approach, compared with those of the basic construction. While, the two modifications of double
glazing and thermal break give higher W-values compared with those of the basic case (cf., Fig. 5).
This does not oppose the fact that installing double glazing, or thermal break will reduce heat flow
through windows. Higher W-value means that the actual heat flow rate is higher than that esti-
mated by a 1D analysis with a larger magnitude.
On the other hand, replacing aluminum frame with wooden frame reduced W-values. However,
wooden frames are not common in hot regions because of the harshness of the weather. There-
fore, the modifications presented in this section are either improper or impractical. Hence, the
effect of introducing new modifications in the basic construction of classical window system on
minimizing the thermal bridge will be investigated in more detail in the next section.

6. Minimizing thermal bridging

In this section, further applicable modifications in the basic construction of classical window
system are proposed and examined by evaluating the thermal bridging severity via W approach.
The modifications considered are as follows:

Fig. 6. W-values for modified versions of basic classical window system.

 A.E. Ben-Nakhi / Applied Thermal Engineering 22 (2002) 989–998 997

1. Internal insulation: the basic construction is rearranged so that the insulation layer becomes be-
tween the cement block and cement plaster.
2. Insulated edge: a 5-cm thick insulating layer is inserted in the construction behind the marble
(and its mortar), extending from the original insulating layer until the internal plaster.
3. Resistive marble: natural marble layer is replaced with a hypothetical resistive marble of ther-
mal conductivity half that of natural type (cf., Table 1).
4. Window indentation: the window is moved in its normal direction from the wall’s internal sur-
face plane to the external surface plane of the wall.

Fig. 6 shows that all modifications lead to a decrease in thermal bridging as well as the cooling
load. One can also notice that the case of using resistive marble has the least reduction in the

Fig. 7. Isothermal lines of the classical and insulated edge window systems.
998 A.E. Ben-Nakhi / Applied Thermal Engineering 22 (2002) 989–998

thermal bridging. The internal insulation approach is considered less attractive than the other two
cases of edge insulation and window indentation, because of the lack in its structural strength.
Therefore, the edge insulation approach is considered the most attractive one, because it is easy to
implement, and more thermally effective (i.e. lower cooling load) than the indented approach.
Plots of isothermal lines of classical and edge insulation window systems are shown in Fig. 7.
These plots show the great improvement in thermal performance of classical window system when
they are modified to edge insulation window system.

7. Conclusions

Thermal bridging through three different window systems commonly used in the buildings of
hot regions has been evaluated by means of W approach. The results show that the classical
construction window system, which is the most common one applied in Kuwait, has significant
thermal bridging that should be considered in buildings’ design.
After demonstrating the reliability and generality of the W approach, it was used to show that
some of energy conservation measures could increase thermal bridging through window systems.
Then, some practical methods for reducing the W-value for the classical window system are
evaluated. The edge insulation approach was found to be the most attractive one for minimizing
thermal bridging.

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