Energy, Economic and Environmental Assessment of Thermal Barrier Application in Building Envelope Structures

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this study, the authors investigated the influence of thermal barrier on the thickness of thermal insulation of building facades. Overall impression from paper is not negative, and research outcomes have certain practical value.

 

However, there are still some comments for corrections:

• The Abstract part should be improved to better present the main content of the manuscript.
• The keywords are too many, please reduce.
• In Figure 13, why these are not data for thermal insulation thicknesses of 250 and 300mm?
• The Conclusions part should be improved, and using bullet points may be better.
• The references are not enough, more are needed.
• Some papers are listed for reference and citation:

https://doi.org/10.1016/0017-9310(95)00268-5

https://doi.org 10.1016/j.powtec.2021.11.019

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0207616

https://doi.org/10.1680/jmacr.19.00194

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2014.09.024

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

We accept and thank the reviewer for his comments. We greatly appreciate the valuable advice and consider it as a guide to improve the article.

Point 1: The Abstract part should be improved to better present the main content of the manuscript.

 Response 1: We have revised the abstract to present the content of the manuscript. In view of this, we have also modified and changed the title of the article: “Energy, economic and environmental assessment of thermal barrier application in building envelope structures”.

Point 2: The keywords are too many, please reduce.

Response 2: We have reduced the keywords to only the most relevant and salient in the context of the article.

Point 3: In Figure 13, why these are not data for thermal insulation thicknesses of 250 and 300mm?

Response 3: Figure 13 evaluates economic indicator 1, which shows the economic efficiency of a building structure with TB and thermal insulation thinner than the standard required thickness of 210 mm for a given external wall. A building structure with TB and thermal insulation greater than 210 mm (250 and 300 mm) is economically inefficient and financially unviable for a particular wall composition. For this reason, the values for 250 and 300 mm thick thermal insulation are not shown in the chart.

Point 4: The Conclusions part should be improved, and using bullet points may be better.

Response 4: The Results and Discussion section has been revised and supplemented with relevant results from the present study and our results from the research we are conducting.

Point 5: The references are not enough, more are needed.

Response 5: We have added Chapter 2, in which we present the state of the art and research in this field with a review of the scientific literature -references of several world authors. We also specific our contribution in the research we present in the paper.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper “Influence of the thermal barrier on the thickness of thermal insulation of building facades” presents an interesting topic in line with the topics of the journal.

However, the organization of the paper, the text, and the English must be strongly revisited.

The real introductory part is missing from the article. In fact, in the introduction, various works from the scientific literature should initially be exhibited, inherent to the issue to be addressed. After having made a general description of the known art, it is necessary to describe how the authors in this paper intend to fill the gaps in the literature.

This work also lacks a clear section where the methodology followed is exposed, the main formulas used to determine what will be shown and the main bondary conditions.

Then, the authors can move on to the results obtained and the discussion of the results. Even in this, it would be necessary to better describe the figures and better argue the results obtained.

Finally, in the conclusion section must be summarized, the main results obtained and any improvements that can be made or any future developments.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

We accept and thank the reviewer for his comments. We greatly appreciate the valuable advice and consider it as a guide to improve the article.

Point 1: However, the organization of the paper, the text, and the English must be strongly revisited.

Response 1: We have revised the organization of the paper, outlined the calculation procedure and added relevant data and results. We have revised the abstract to present the content of the manuscript. In view of this, we have also modified and changed the title of the article: “Energy, economic and environmental assessment of thermal barrier application in building envelope structures”. We have reduced the keywords to only the most relevant and salient in the context of the article. We also had the paper checked and corrected for language.

Point 2: The real introductory part is missing from the article. In fact, in the introduction, various works from the scientific literature should initially be exhibited, inherent to the issue to be addressed. After having made a general description of the known art, it is necessary to describe how the authors in this paper intend to fill the gaps in the literature.

Response 2: We have added Chapter 2, in which we present the state of the art and research in this field with a review of the scientific literature - references of several world authors. We also specific our contribution in the research we present in the paper.

Point 3: This work also lacks a clear section where the methodology followed is exposed, the main formulas used to determine what will be shown and the main bondary conditions.

Response 3: We have completed and clarified the methodology of the present study. We present the main formulas and calculation procedure used in the energy, economic and environmental analysis.

Point 4: Then, the authors can move on to the results obtained and the discussion of the results. Even in this, it would be necessary to better describe the figures and better argue the results obtained.

Response 4: The Results and Discussion section has been revised and supplemented with relevant results from the present study and our results from the research we are conducting.

Point 5: Finally, in the conclusion section must be summarized, the main results obtained and any improvements that can be made or any future developments.

Response 5: In the Results and Discussion section, we summarize the achievements of this study. At the very end we present the results achieved in the our research done so far on this issue and also indicate possible improvements and directions for our further research.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

With the revision work the quality of the article has improved a lot. Some figures should be better deepened and introduced. In addition, there is a very high number of self-citationes which is not very nice to see.