Non-Destructive Argon Concentration Assessment within Insulating Glass Units (IGUs) using Ultrasonic Technique

Abstract

Insulating glass units (IGUs) contribute significantly to energy loss among building envelopes, as they are responsible for approximately 30 to 50% of thermal transmission losses. To mitigate these losses, inert gases such as Argon are used within IGU spacers. The aging of IGUs cause decrease in Argon gas concentration, affecting their insulating properties. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the Argon concentration to maintain the insulating effectiveness of IGUs. Therefore, this study focuses on utilizing ultrasonic testing (UT) to develop a non-destructive and affordable methodology for assessing argon concentration within IGUs. The methodology is developed in four steps: (1) designing an experimental setup for creating accurate gas mixtures of Argon and air, and transferring the target gas mixtures to the IGU spacer; (2) performing ultrasonic tests on IGUs with 60kHz excitation frequency to generate UT waveforms; (3) performing a validation test of the proposed methodology to verify the accuracy and repeatability of results obtained from step 2; and (4) analyzing the ultrasonic waveforms to explore the correlation between UT properties and Argon concentration within IGU. The findings show that ultrasonic energy serves as the most effective UT feature for assessing Argon concentration within the IGU spacer, as evidenced by a strong correlation with an R-squared value exceeding 0.9 across all the UT measurements. This research introduces a user-friendly solution that enhances the ease of assessing Argon concentration within IGUs' spacers, thereby facilitating the monitoring of their operational performance. The proposed methodology for evaluating Argon concentration holds potential benefits for IGU manufacturers and researchers. Moreover, it serves as a valuable tool for improving quality control across the manufacturing, maintenance, and operational stages of IGUs.