Thermarate

Research & development · For industry

Called in when the question is hard.

Some of Australia’s largest building-product manufacturers engage us when a product question becomes a physics question: how a framing system, roof or wall performs inside a real building, and how that performance is demonstrated under the National Construction Code.

Discuss a research project See the physics

01What we work on

Product questions, answered with physics.

The work keeps us at the leading edge of the field, and it feeds straight back into the advice we give on every house and every commercial building.

  1. Product performance modelling

    How a product or system changes heating and cooling loads, comfort and thermal bridging, across climate zones.

    Modelling

  2. Compliance pathways for products

    How a product or system can be used under each NCC route, and the evidence each route needs.

    The Code

  3. Steel framing and thermal bridging

    How framing systems perform once thermal bridging is counted, and how that is represented in compliance models.

    Framing

  4. Embodied carbon

    Life cycle assessment of products and systems, so their embodied carbon can be weighed alongside how they perform.

    LCA

  5. Roofing, walling and cladding

    How envelope products change loads and summer comfort across Australian climates.

    Envelope

  6. Technical reports and industry briefings

    Modelling and reporting for technical literature and submissions, and briefings for a manufacturer’s network of builders and specifiers.

    Evidence

02The physics, live

A thermal bridge, solved in your browser.

A two-dimensional heat-flow solution through one bay of a steel-framed brick-veneer wall, calculated as you watch. It is the kind of analysis behind the questions manufacturers bring us. Move across the wall to read the temperature at any point.

Compare wall systems, frames and batts in the wall lab

Solving · 2D heat flow, steel-framed brick-veneer wall Iterations 0 Residual – Coldest inside surface – Move across the wall to probe it

03How we work with industry

Rigorous, documented, discreet.

  1. The question and scope, agreed up frontWhat we will test, how, and what, if anything, will be published.
  2. Methods in writingSo results can be checked, repeated and defended.
  3. Results framed for every routeNatHERS, Deemed-to-Satisfy and Performance Solution pathways, for homes and commercial buildings.
  4. Confidential by defaultMuch of this work is confidential, and stays that way.

Research

Bring us the hard question.

A product that needs evidence, a system that needs a compliance pathway, or a result that needs a second opinion. We’re glad to discuss relevant experience.

Discuss a research project