Thermal performance of light weight and insulated concrete blocks in Omani environment.
مؤلف
El-Tayeb Mohammed, Mohammed Abd El-Rahman.
الملخص الإنجليزي
The thermal comfort in residential buildings is greatly influenced by the outside climatic conditions. By reason of harsh climate of Sultanate of Oman, residential buildings consume a considerable amount of energy. Most of this energy is consumed by the airconditioning systems which are used to eliminate the extensive amount of heat gained due to poor thermal insulation of building envelope. Utilization of thermal mass in residential buildings can be one of the most effective ways of reducing building heating and cooling loads. Such savings can be achieved in the design stage of buildings on relatively low-cost basis. Moreover, such reductions in building envelope heat losses combined with optimizing material configuration and using of a proper thermal insulation in the building envelope will help to reduce the building cooling and heating energy demands.
The objectives of this research are to evaluate the thermal performance of three rooms made of different concrete blocks. Two of them are already used in Omani building (normal and insulated concrete blocks) and the third one is recently constructed by Sultan Qaboos University laboratory (Light Weight concrete block). An extensive experimental measurement has been conducted for six month measuring indoor and outdoor temperature. Seck out of measuring the outside surface and inside temperature a number of thermocouples are fixed on the inside and the outside of each wall and these thermocouples are connected to a computer to record temperature readings cach half an hour for a period of six months from February to July 2004.
Heat Energy Efficient Design Software (HEED) had been used to evaluate the thermal performance of the three types of concrete blocks by generating three different models. Each model consisting of one room as the model room and the other two rooms as neighbors in order to get the same effect of sun and shading directions. Moreover, a simulation for the whole year was conducted. The results show that the insulated concrete block has highest thermal performance followed by light weight concrete block and finally the normal concrete block.
