Thermal Behaviour and Micro Climate Studies of Several Wall Insulation on Houses in a Tropical Climate (Aw) Area

Abstract

Standard brick walls have caused a gradual increase in the area’s temperature due to the bricks’ emissivity. Therefore, several effective technologies to overcome this problem have been proposed, one of which is thermal insulation by covering the outer walls of bricks from exposure to sunlight. This study compares thermal insulation effectiveness with Glass Fiber Reinforced Cement (GRC) and Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) material to obtain better insulations. This study is performed by modeling the area of 4 housing units using ENVI-met V4 in a humid tropical climate, focused in an east-west direction in a clear sky. Each building measures eight times 6 m2, with 4 meters in height, with a distance between buildings of 3 meters. GRC and EPS are affixed to the entire surface of the outer wall of the building, both on the east side and west sidewalls. The parameter observed is the wall surface temperature. The results showed that walls with GRC and EPS gave more effective results in lowering the surface temperature of brick walls, with values ranging from 8-23%. The use of insulation intervention on the east wall at 06.00-12.00 and the west wall at 13.00-18.00 shows higher accumulated surface temperature than the standard brick wall at peak hours, which means that the insulation material controls solar radiation. However, the phenomenon on the east wall at 12.00-07.00 and the west wall at 18.00-13.00 shows a controlled temperature above the surface temperature when using a standard brick wall.