This paper assesses energy savings in terms of heating, cooling, and artificial lighting achieved in an office building with a high Window to Wall Ratio (WWR), located in Athens and Stockholm. Six different configurations of triple pane windows combining thermochromic, electrochromic, and low-e coatings in Insulated Glass Units (IGUs) are examined to quantify the potential of increasing energy savings in office buildings. The combination of electrochromic and thermochromic layers on the outer pane of the triple IGU, achieved an 18.5% and 8.1% reduction in annual primary energy use for Athens and Stockholm, respectively. The used switching strategy ensured the visual comfort of the employees and provided adequate daylight in both cases. It was found that in Stockholm the cooling system can be downsized considerably, achieving important cost reduction in the HVAC system. The analysis also takes into account the reduction of thermal storage in the building envelope due to the switchable windows. This reduction is beneficial in the case of Athens, but it can reduce energy savings in Stockholm. Therefore, for colder climates, it is important to increase window heat gains through the development of layers with higher g-value in the clear state and through the application of appropriate switching strategies.

Gypsum based fire protection relies on thermally activated dehydration, where chem-ically bound water is released and evaporated, producing an endothermic heat sink and delaying heat penetration through assemblies. In parallel, non-organic hydrated salts are increasingly used as flame retardant additives in gypsum-based systems to enhance heat absorption over targeted temperature ranges. Fire simulation tools and performance-based fire engineering methods require dehydration kinetics and reaction enthalpies that can be implemented as coupled thermal chemical source terms. How-ever, additive specific kinetic datasets suitable for such implementation remain limited, especially under restricted vapor exchange conditions representative of porous con-struction materials. The present study investigates the thermal decomposition behavior and dehydration kinetics of selected non-organic hydrated salts—aluminium trihydrate (ATH), magne-sium hydroxide (MDH), calcium aluminate sulphate (CAS), and magnesium sulphate heptahydrate (ESM)—commonly used as flame-retardant additives in gypsum-based construction materials. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) experiments were conducted at three heating rates (10, 20, and 30 K/min for MDH, CAS and ESM and 20, 40 and 60 K/min for GB-ATH) up to 600 °C using pinhole crucibles to simulate autogenous vapor pressure. Thermal analysis revealed that ATH, MDH, and CAS undergo single-step dehydration, while ESM exhibits a complex multi-step mechanism involving the formation of in-termediate meta-stable hydrates. Kinetic parameters were determined using both model-free (Starink) and model-fitting approaches. The derived activation energy profiles confirmed the single-step nature of ATH and MDH and identified CAS and ESM as multi-stage systems. All reactions were well described using the Avrami–Erofeev model, indicating nucleation-and-growth mechanisms. The extracted kinetic triplets were validated through numerical simulation, showing close agreement with experimental α(t) and dα/dt(T) data. The resulting kinetic triplets and dehydration enthalpies form a directly usable dataset for coupled heat transfer and dehydration models of gypsum-based assemblies, enabling improved parameter-ization of endothermic heat sinks and bound water release in fire safety engineering simulations.

Gypsum-based fire protection relies on thermally activated dehydration, where chemically bound water is released and evaporated, thereby providing an endothermic heat sink that delays heat penetration through assemblies. In parallel, inorganic hydrated salts are increasingly used as flame-retardant additives in gypsum-based systems to enhance heat absorption over specific temperature ranges. Fire simulation tools and performance-based fire engineering approaches require reliable kinetic data and reaction enthalpies that can be implemented as coupled thermal–chemical source terms. However, additive-specific kinetic datasets remain limited, particularly under restricted vapor exchange conditions representative of porous construction materials. This work investigates the thermal decomposition behavior and dehydration kinetics of Aluminum Trihydrate (Al(OH)₃, ATH), Magnesium Hydroxide (Mg(OH)₂, MDH), Calcium Aluminate Sulfate (3CaO·Al₂O₃·3CaSO₄·32H₂O, CAS), and Magnesium Sulfate Heptahydrate (MgSO₄·7H₂O, ESM) with emphasis on vapor-restricted conditions representative of confined porous systems. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) experiments were conducted at three heating rates (2, 10, and 20 K/min for MDH, CAS and ESM and 20, 40 and 60 K/min for GB-ATH) up to 600 °C using pinhole crucibles to simulate autogenous vapor pressure. The thermal analysis indicates that ATH and MDH exhibit predominantly single-step dehydration behavior, while ESM shows a complex multi-step mechanism. Although CAS presents a single dominant thermal peak in the DSC signal, the isoconversional analysis reveals a multi-stage reaction behavior, demonstrating that peak-based interpretation alone may be insufficient for such systems. Kinetic parameters were determined using both model-free (Starink) and model-fitting approaches in accordance with the recommendations of the Kinetics Committee of the International Confederation for Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry (ICTAC). All reactions were consistently described using the Avrami–Erofeev model as an effective phenomenological representation of the conversion behavior. The extracted kinetic triplets were validated through numerical simulations, showing good agreement with experimental conversion and reaction rate data. The resulting kinetic parameters and dehydration enthalpies provide a physically consistent dataset for the description of dehydration processes under restricted vapor exchange. These results support the development of thermochemical models for gypsum-based systems; however, their transferability to full-scale assemblies remains subject to validation under coupled heat- and mass-transfer conditions.