Advancing sustainable construction through comprehensive analysis of thermal, acoustic, and environmental properties in prefabricated panels with recycled PET materials

Abstract

Acoustic and thermal insulation materials play a crucial role in the construction industry as they ensure high-performance applications. This study analyzes three recycled insulations (two derived from PET and one is EPS with graphite additives) for innovative prefabricated panels. A multiphysics, multiscale, and multiobjective approach was developed to analyze the performance of the individual materials and three prototype prefabricated panels incorporating them, combined with numerical analysis enabling the thermal transmittances assessment of a full-scale panel. Thermal investigations were conducted at both small and large scales to assess their performance. Additionally, acoustic sound insulation measurements at both scales and a LCA analysis were carried out. Thermal conductivity of the insulation layer ranges from 0.026 to 0.043 Wm−1K−1. Furthermore, the sound transmission loss exhibits a positive trend with increasing frequencies, reaching approximately 10 dB after 1600 Hz for the 15 cm thick PET insulation. EPS performs exceptionally well at low frequencies, with sound insulation peaks reaching almost 40 dB around 400 Hz. At the large scale, the weighted sound reduction index showed a 3.5 dB increase compared to the reference. The environmental assessment emphasized that 80 % of global warming potential comes from material extraction, stressing the importance of using recycled materials.