Analyzing optimum thickness for combination of two thermal insulation materials for building walls

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This paper reports an approach for analyzing optimum thickness for combination of two thermal insulation materials for walls of residential buildings on the basis of life cycle cost. Two thermal insulation materials for achieving contrast purposes can be use as a solution in many applications e.g. if fire resistant material added with Expanded polystyrene (EPS) to improve its fire resistance property, its thermal conductivity increases, where as if we select glass wool as thermal insulation material it has higher thermal conductivity but better fire resistant, thus if we wish to achieve high thermal resistance with better fire resistance at low cost we can use in place of single thermal insulation material a combination of two thermal insulation materials. In order to determine optimum thickness for combination of two thermal insulation materials there is a need to develop an approach, through which optimum insulation thickness for different combination of two thermal insulation materials on the basis of life cycle cost can be analyzed. To study the effect of fraction of one thermal insulation on optimum thermal insulation thickness proposed approach is applied to insulate external wall of a residential building envelope in heating application. Developed total cost objective function analyzed with the help of surface plot. In order to apply the developed approach EPS and glass wool are considered as thermal insulation materials. Through this approach optimum thickness for combination of two thermal insulation materials can be analyzed on the basis of life cycle cost in order to select best combination of thermal insulation materials as per requirement.