Thermal Characterization of Cement-Plaster-Expanded Polystyrene Composites

Abstract

Thermal insulation of building envelopes is one of the most efficient way to ensure passive thermal comfort and reduce the carbon footprint of the construction sector. Therefore, looking for innovative low-cost insulation materials represents a key challenge. This paper presents a development of a new enhanced cement-based building material using local by-products and describes its impact on the energy efficiency of residential buildings. An experimental study on the effect of adding plaster and Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) with different volume fraction on the thermal properties of cement is presented. The thermal transport properties of the developed mixtures are investigated using the Hot Disk method. The results obtained showed that the addition of 5 vol.% and 40 vol.% of plaster and EPS respectively decreases the thermal conductivity of cement by nearly 40%, which highlights the importance of the proposed mixture for enhancing the thermal resistance of the building compounds. For comparison purposes a dynamic thermal simulation was carried out for a typical Moroccan house located in Oujda city, Morocco. The numerical results show that up to 40% of cooling and 31% of heating loads required to reach thermal comfort could be reduced, if the proposed material substitutes the conventional one.