Experimental Study of Thermal Conductivity of Insulation Materials Made of Expanded Polypropylene, Ethylene-Vinyl Acetate Co-Polymer and Polyethylene

Abstract

Thermal insulation materials are among the simplest ways of decreasing heat loss in the buildings. When insulation materials are installed in the walls, floors and roof of a building to prevent heat loss from the building, materials must be used with the appropriate structural and thermal properties. In this paper, a laboratory test of the thermal conductivity and cell structure of building insulation materials was conducted. From the experiment results, the correlation expression between thermal conductivity and density was derived. In the case of the insulation materials that were made of expanded polypropylene (EPP), as the density increased, the thermal conductivity tended to decrease; and in the case of ethylene-vinyl acetate co-polymer (EVA) and polyethylene (PE), as the density of the insulation materials increased, the thermal conductivity tended to also increase.