Double Skin Bio-thermal Insulation with Radiation Reflector Cool Roof to Enhance Energy Efficiency and Indoor Comfort Conditions in Extreme Climates

V. Kumar Vinod

Abstract


Global warming, in arid regions raises the indoor air temperature and energy utilisation of residential buildings. The development of effective passive cooling solutions is critical for lowering room air temperature and improvement of building energy consumption. Numerous studies have analysed the effects of non-renewable and non-degradable thermal insulators on building thermal performance. However, only a few studies have employed naturally available and inexpensive bio-thermal insulators. This study is an attempt to investigate the impact of naturally abundant and renewable date palm tree leaves to be used as a thermal insulator on a cool roof. This research also investigated the benefits of integrating a bio-thermal insulator (date palm tree leaves) with a double skin aluminium radiation reflector (ARR) during the summer seasons of Oman and the impact of dynamic air ventilation in a cool roof. As compared to a typical reinforced bare concrete roof, field experiments showed that bio-thermal insulator cool roofs significantly reduced indoor and roof surface temperatures. The test results showed that the room air temperature of bio thermal insulator cool roof was reduced by 3.04 oC (7.5%), 4.37 oC (10.3%), and 6.01 oC (16.3%) for 0, 20, and 40 cm air ventilation between the date palm leaves and radiation reflector roof, respectively, in contrast with a conventional reference roof. The corresponding decrease in roof surface temperature was measured to be 6.87 oC, 12.25 oC and 14.87 oC respectively.  The heat flux studies revealed that the bio-thermal insulator cool roof (air ventilation = 40 cm) presents significantly reduced peaks in heat flux with an average reduction of 16 W/m2 over the reference roof.  The experimental studies have demonstrated that the double skin bio-thermal radiation reflector integrated cool roof effectively reduced the interior air and roof surface temperatures during the summer.


Keywords


Aluminium Radiation reflector, Bio-thermal Insulation, Building energy consumption, Cooling load reduction, Double skin cool roof, Energy conservation

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References


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DOI (PDF): https://doi.org/10.20508/ijrer.v14i4.14669.g8954

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