Improving the Thermal Comfort of a Building by Adding a Layer of Straw over the High Floor

Abstract

This document deals with the thermal characterization of a building with a layer of straw above the high floor. In the current environmental context, in Senegal, buildings are the biggest consumers of energy. This is due to the construction materials used. Almost of buildings in Senegal used concrete (cement + aggregates) as based material construction. Due to this, the buildings require air conditioning or artificial ventilation to ensure minimum comfort. In face of this situation, it becomes useful to propose methods for reducing this high energy consumption. In this work, we propose to add a layer of straw above the high floor of a building in Matam city (North Senegal). In this case, we designed and modeled one building of single room in which the walls are in briks and a concrete slab. A bale of straw is layered on this slab in order to determine its influence on the energy consumption of the building. This study shows that the straw has a strong influence on the energy consumption of a building and the slab + straw building is more energy efficient than the bare slab building.