Development of thermally insulated sustainable building model Available to Purchase

Appropriate construction materials with low thermal conductivity are required to control excess heat gain in building surfaces exposed to hot climates. This paper elaborates on the development and application of three sustainable building materials, namely hollow bricks using construction waste, double-glazed windows insulated with ultraviolet (UV) rejection film and reflecting/insulating roof treatment material. The physical, mechanical and thermal properties of the developed materials were investigated. To investigate the thermal performance experimentally, two small-scale models were developed over the study area. A two-room model (M1) built with fly ash brick, double-glazed (plain glass) windows with UV rejection film (W1) and a conventional reinforced cement concrete roof was compared with another two-room model (M2) built with construction waste bricks, double-glazed (commercial glass) windows with UV rejection film (W2) and a reinforced cement concrete roof that underwent a reflecting/insulating treatment. The results showed that the thermal transmittance of the wall and the roof of model M2 was reduced by 73% and 25% respectively compared with the wall and roof of model M1. Temperature analyses revealed that the west and east rooms of M2 were respectively 2·3% and 5·0% cooler than those of M1.