Study of the influence of local materials insulation on cooling loads of a house made of breeze block or laterite in a dry tropical climate

Abstract

In this paper, we study the influence of local materials for insulating roof and fiber-reinforced mortar coatings on cooling loads of a home in dry tropical climate. The wall of the housing is made of cinderblock or laterite and the insulating material of a roof panel is made with lime (24%), cement (6%), water (50%) of vegetable fibers hibiscus sabdariffa (16%), tree widespread in Burkina Faso and sugar cane bagasse (4%). This panel roof insulation and the fiber-reinforced mortar were characterized at the Laboratory of Physics and Chemistry of the environment by the hot plate method. The building is modeled in TRNSYS using climate data from the city of Ouagadougou. The results obtained show that in the warmer months of the year, that is to say in March and April, the relative differences between heat gains configurations the configurations “breeze block-coating mortar and roof not insulated” and ‘laterite- fiber-reinforced mortar coating and insulated roof’ vary between 15.6 % and 16.8 %. Configuration ‘laterite- fiber-reinforced mortar coating and insulated roof allows a reduction of annual heat gains of 15.5% compared to the configuration ‘breeze block-coating mortar and roof not insulated’.