Thermo-structural analysis and design for multi-functional membrane roofs of airport terminals

The utilization of large-span membrane structures in airport terminals has attracted considerable attention due to their excellent building aesthetics, reasonable structural behavior and multi-functional applications. Integrating structure and function is useful to improve thermal performance of such buildings. This study focuses on a scaled two-layer membrane roof in accordance with a newly-built aerogel-membrane airport roof and investigates the dynamic building thermal performance. The two-layer membrane roof is composed of an outer membrane layer as structural element, an air gap for ventilation and an inner membrane layer integrating aerogel mats. The effects of aerogel thickness, ventilation velocity and gap height are analyzed with multi-physics numerical tools. The structural behavior of the aerogel-membrane roof structure is examined in agreement with the building standards. The comparison between numerical and experimental results on solar irradiance is performed to demonstrate the reliability of numerical results under the typical environmental conditions. The thickness of the aerogel layer and the ventilation velocity are shown to have a significant effect while the air-gap height plays a minor role. A maximum temperature reduction of 4.7 °C demonstrates that using the proposed approach can improve building thermal performance. Moreover, temperature curves with small fluctuations indicate an efficient control of the indoor temperature. Therefore, the thermo-structural analysis method of the multi-functional membrane roofs can guarantee structural safety and facilitate building thermal performance control.