Edinburgh Napier University

  Over the last century a temperature rise of 0.6 C m global climate and the affiliated greenhouse effects have inflicted enormous impacts in the form of natural catastrophes, economical losses, health problems and seasonal disorder. If human activities continue at existing pace, a further temperature rise of 2.5 C is being anticipated over the next hundred years, which may cause unimaginable damage to humanity and ecology of the planet. In such a prevailing global environmental scenario sustainability is the need of hour and should be given the prime importance in execution of activities in all sectors in order to keep future secure for coming generations.

Windows are amongst the most sensitive elements in a building envelope, also, due to their multi-disciplinary role, they are important not only for their effects on interior environment but also for the energy performance of the building. Energy contents and environmental impacts of the materials involved, add up on to window significance in the ecology of buildings. Energy efficient windows with least possible environmental burden over their whole life cycle are thus very important in achieving
desired levels of sustainability in general, particularly in buildings.

The present work addresses the sustainability of double glazed aluminium clad timber windows adopting the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. LCA of windows helps cutting down the associated ecological burdens at all stages, i.e. extraction/production of materials, operation,
maintenance and disposal of windows at the end of their service life. Cost effectiveness and productivity, the important features of sustainability, have been evaluated for aluminium clad timber and timber windows on the basis of life cycle cost assessment (LCCA) approach. Value engineering (VE) of aluminium clad timber windows has also been addressed. Running and/or maintenance costs which largely determine the life cycle costing have been estimated and the most cost effective options are presented.

Four different types of windows, made of aluminium, aluminium clad timber, PVC and timber frame, have also been compared with respect to the ecology of frame materials - covering energy contents and environmental loads, maintenance and durability, service life and costing. A survey has been carried out with the help of housing authorities, architects and surveyors within UK, to study the performance of these windows in real life. A series of accelerated tests have been carried out to study the weathering performance of the candidate windows. The results have revealed that aluminium clad timber windows have excellent resistance against weathering conditions and they perform better than aluminium, PVC and timber windows under any conditions. In an ongoing research project at Napier, copper (Cu) coated silicon carbide (SiC) reinforcement particles have been used in aluminium 6061 matrix to enhance the mechanical properties of the Al SiC metal matrix composite (MMC), which is a prospective material to be used in window hardware. Results have indicated that Cu coating does not bring any additional corrosion loads onto the MMC. Recommendations for further work have also been laid out.