Energy Conservation and Thermal Insulation Performance of Concrete Block Walls Incorporating Expanded Polystyrene Panels: Experimental and Simulation Study
Publication: Journal of Architectural Engineering
Volume 28, Issue 3
Abstract
This work presents a field investigation and numerical simulation for studying the heat transmission through the walls of two specially designed test rooms exposed to the hot and arid summer climate of the coastal region of eastern Saudi Arabia. The walls of the reference room were constructed of typical hollow-core concrete blocks, while the walls of the second room were made of concrete blocks incorporating expanded polystyrene (EPS) panels. Both test rooms were equipped with thermocouples, heat flux meters, temperature/relative humidity sensors, and power meters that provided continuous measurements during the test period. Infrared scanning and U-value measurements were also performed, and a weather station installed at the site provided the meteorological data. The results of these measurements revealed that the walls made of the concrete blocks incorporating EPS panels have a heat flow resistance about 255% higher than that of the walls built of typical hollow-core concrete blocks. Similarly, the thermal transmittance was lower by about 65%. Accordingly, the second room displayed a reduction of 29% in energy consumption for providing the same level of thermal comfort during the summer months as compared with that in the reference room. Both test rooms were simulated using DesignBuilder software, and the simulation results were validated with the field monitoring data. In addition, parametric studies were subsequently carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of other insulation materials. It was found that the application of the reflective coating and insulating plaster over EPS concrete blocks could further improve the reduction of energy consumption to about 47%.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the support of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Interdisciplinary Research Center for Construction and Building Materials at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The first author acknowledges the support of the University of Hail, Hail, Saudi Arabia, and Thamar University, Dhamar, Yemen. The authors highly acknowledge the support of SouthMed Company, Dammam, for this study in terms of providing the site and construction of the test rooms, and providing the materials, equipment, and sensors.
Notation
The following symbols are used in this paper:
- C
- thermal conductance, W m−2 K−1;
- q
- heat flux, W m−2;
- R
- thermal resistance, m2 KW−1;
- RHi
- inside air relative humidity, %;
- RHo
- outside air relative humidity, %;
- Ris
- inside surface air film resistance, m2 KW−1;
- Ros
- outside surface air film resistance, m2 KW−1;
- RT
- total thermal resistance, m2 KW−1;
- Ti
- inside air temperature, °C or K;
- Tis
- inside surface temperature, °C or K;
- To
- outside air temperature, °C or K;
- Tos
- outside surface temperature, °C or K;
- U
- thermal transmittance, W m−2 K−1;
Subscripts
- i
- inside;
- o
- outside;
- s
- surface;
Index
- j
- individual measurements; and
- n
- number of measurements.
References
Ahmad, A., M. Maslehuddin, and L. M. Al-Hadhrami. 2014. “In situ measurement of thermal transmittance and thermal resistance of hollow reinforced precast concrete walls.” Energy Build. 84: 132–141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2014.07.048.
Al-Hammad, A.-M., M. A. Abdelrahman, W. Grondzik, and A. Hawari. 1994. “A comparison between actual and published k-values for Saudi insulation materials.” J. Therm. Insul. Build. Envelopes 17 (4): 378–385. https://doi.org/10.1177/109719639401700407.
Al-Homoud, M. S. 2005. “Performance characteristics and practical applications of common building thermal insulation materials.” Build. Environ. 40 (3): 353–366. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2004.05.013.
Al-Jabri, K. S., A. W. Hago, A. S. Al-Nuaimi, and A. H. Al-Saidy. 2005. “Concrete blocks for thermal insulation in hot climate.” Cem. Concr. Res. 35 (8): 1472–1479. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cemconres.2004.08.018.
Al-Naghi, A. A. A., M. K. Rahman, O. S. B. Al-Amoudi, and S. U. Al-Dulaijan. 2020. “Thermal performance evaluation of walls with AAC blocks, insulating plaster, and reflective coating.” J. Energy Eng. 146 (2): 04019040. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)EY.1943-7897.0000636.
ASTM. 2013a. Standard practice for 28 determining thermal resistance of building envelope components from the in-situ data. ASTM C1155-95. West Conshohocken, PA: ASTM.
ASTM. 2013b. Standard practice for in-situ measurement of heat flux and temperature on building envelope components. ASTM C1046-95. West Conshohocken, PA: ASTM.
ASTM. 2015. Standard practice for thermographic inspection of insulation installations in envelope cavities of frame buildings. ASTM C1060-11a. West Conshohocken, PA: ASTM.
Barreira, E., R. M. S. F. Almeida, and J. M. P. Q. Delgado. 2016. “Infrared thermography for assessing moisture related phenomena in building components.” Constr. Build. Mater. 110: 251–269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2016.02.026.
Bianchi, F., A. L. Pisello, G. Baldinelli, and F. Asdrubali. 2014. “Infrared thermography assessment of thermal bridges in building envelope: Experimental validation in a test room setup.” Sustainability 6 (10): 7107–7120. https://doi.org/10.3390/su6107107.
Bienvenido-Huertas, D., R. Rodríguez-Álvaro, J. Moyano, F. Rico, and D. Marín. 2018. “Determining the U-value of façades using the thermometric method: Potentials and limitations.” Energies 11 (2): 360. https://doi.org/10.3390/en11020360.
Cardinale, N., G. Rospi, and P. Stefanizzi. 2013. “Energy and microclimatic performance of Mediterranean vernacular buildings: The Sassi district of Matera and the Trulli district of Alberobello.” Build. Environ. 59 (Jan): 590–598. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2012.10.006.
Danielski, I., and M. Fröling. 2015. “Diagnosis of buildings’ thermal performance—A quantitative method using thermography under non-steady state heat flow.” Energy Procedia 83 (Dec): 320–329. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2015.12.186.
Dell’Isola, M., F. R. d’Ambrosio Alfano, G. Giovinco and E. Ianniello. 2012. “Experimental analysis of thermal conductivity for building materials depending on moisture content.” Int. J. Thermophys. 33 (8–9): 1674–1685. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10765-012-1215-z.
DesignBuilder. 2017. “DesignBuilder Software Ltd 2017.” Accessed May 10, 2018. https://www.designbuilder.co.uk/.
dos Santos, G. H., M. A. Fogiatto, and N. Mendes. 2017. “Numerical analysis of thermal transmittance of hollow concrete blocks.” J. Build. Phys. 41 (1): 7–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/1744259117698522.
Elias-ozkan, S. T., F. Summers, and N. Surmeli. 2006. “A comparative study of the thermal performance of building materials.” In Proc., 23rd Conf. on Passive and Low Energy Architecture. Geneva, Switzerland: Organizing Committee of PLEA 2006.
Emadi, M. I. 2014. “The role of thermal insulation in external walls for energy consumption in the case of Famagusta, North Cyprus.” In Advances in Environmental Technology and Biotechnology, 81–90. Attica, Greece: WSEAS Press.
EnergyPlus. 2018. “EnergyPlus documentation-engineering reference, the reference to EnergyPlus calculations.” Accessed May 1, 2018. https://energyplus.net/documentation.
Ficco, G., F. Iannetta, E. Ianniello, F. R. d’Ambrosio Alfano, and M. Dell’Isola. 2015. “U-value in situ measurement for energy diagnosis of existing buildings.” Energy Build. 104: 108–121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2015.06.071.
Fiorato, A., and C. Cruz. 1979. “Thermal performance of masonry walls.” Proc., 5th Int. Brick Masonry Conf., 664–674. Reston, VA: Brick Institute of America.
Hu, G., and R. K. Agarwal. 2016. “Accented models: Evaluating their effectiveness in building energy simulation.” Vol. 2 of Mechanical engineering and materials science independent study. St. Louis: Washington Univ. http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/mems500/2.
ISO. 2014. Thermal insulation building elements-in-situ measurement of thermal resistance and thermal transmittance—Part 1: Heat flow meter. ISO9869-1. Genève: ISO.
Jaworski, J. 2008. “The infrared thermography of buildings proceeding its surrounding and their thermal performance.” In Proc., 9th Int. Conf. on Quantitative InfraRed Thermography. Canada: QIRT Council.
Lee, K. O. 2014. “Experimental and simulation approaches for optimizing the thermal performance of building enclosures containing phase change materials.” Ph.D. thesis, Dept. of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering, Univ. of Kansas.
Ozel, M. 2011. “Thermal performance and optimum insulation thickness of building walls with different structure materials.” Appl. Therm. Eng. 31 (17–18): 3854–3863. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2011.07.033.
Patil, S. E., A. R. Deshmukh, and R. A. Charate. 2015. “Experimental thermal analysis of composite roof and its effects on overall thermal resistant in building envelope.” Int. Res. J. Eng. Technol. 2 (4): 2395–2356. https://www.irjet.net/archives/V2/i4/Irjet-v2i4231.pdf.
Pavlik, Z., M. Jerman, A. Trnik, V. Kočí, and R. Černý. 2014. “Effective thermal conductivity of hollow bricks with cavities filled by air and expanded polystyrene.” J. Build. Phys. 37 (4): 436–448. https://doi.org/10.1177/1744259113499214.
SEEC (Saudi Energy Efficiency Center). 2019. “Buildings.” Accessed April 20, 2019. http://www.seec.gov.sa/en/blog/buildings.
Walker, R., and S. Pavía. 2015. “Thermal performance of a selection of insulation materials suitable for historic buildings.” Build. Environ. 94 (P1): 155–165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2015.07.033.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Architectural Engineering
Volume 28 • Issue 3 • September 2022
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 2, 2021
Accepted: May 9, 2022
Published online: Jul 7, 2022
Published in print: Sep 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Dec 7, 2022
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Architectural engineering
- Building insulation
- Building systems
- Concrete
- Concrete blocks
- Energy engineering
- Energy sources (by type)
- Engineering fundamentals
- Engineering materials (by type)
- Engineering mechanics
- Field tests
- Materials engineering
- Plastics
- Polystyrene
- Renewable energy
- Structural engineering
- Structural members
- Structural systems
- Synthetic materials
- Tests (by type)
- Thermal power
- Thermal properties
- Thermodynamics
- Walls
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.