Chameera Udawattha

Thermal performance and structural cooling analysis of brick, cement block, and mud concrete block

ABSTRACT This investigation is apropos the thermal analysis and structural cooling of brick, cement block and mud concrete block walling materials to compare the thermal comfort of different walling materials. Structural cooling is a method of cooling hot temperature by using the structure. Void spaces in a building block can be studied as porosity. It can be measured by assessing solid to void spaces. The thermal performance can be measured by calculating the time lag and the decrement factor. The initial testing was done in order to understand the thermal conductivity and heat capacity in both wet and dry conditions. The real-world analysis and simulation analysis were used to validate the argument. For the case studies, real-world buildings with an identical plan form but constructed with three different walling materials were used and their thermal performances were measured. And then one building was simulated in order to create an identical scenario. With the real-world observation, it was found that brick walling materials have better time lag and decrement factor with the thickness of 225 mm. An overall analysis shows that mud concrete block has better structural cooling ability and the thermal performance than other wall materials.