Thermal performance assessment of sandwich wall panel fabricated with polyurethane foam and natural husk

Abstract

The demand for enhancing thermal efficiency in building construction has accelerated the evolution of sandwich wall panels in recent years. In this study, the novel sandwich panel is developed using Polyurethane (PU) as core and PU replaced with Rice husk (RH) and Coconut Husk (CH) at varying percentage (10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 %) with calcium silicate board as outer material. Dimension of sandwich panel is 30 × 30 cm with 3 cm as a core thickness is tested for compressive strength. The panel owing highest compressive load with combination of Polyurethane foam Coconut Husk panel at 20 % (PUC3–20 %) and polyurethane foam Rice husk panel at 30 % (PUR3–30 %) was taken further for thermal analysis. The temperature study was carried out on a prototype model using IR thermographic camera showing the temperature difference of indoor and outdoor of the sandwich panel. The PUR3–30 % shows the thermal conductivity of 0.28 w/mk and the difference of thermal heat flux was 10.42 W/m2. Regression analysis was carried out to validate the experimental results and the correlation accuracy of R2 > 0.90 was obtained. A residential building (G+3) was created in Autodesk Revit to conduct an energy analysis audit, where all the data of fabricated sandwich panel was added as new material and the analysis was carried out in green building studio. The annual energy and annual fuel end use for Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) has been decreased by 3.5 and 4.5 % using PUC3–20 % and PUR3–30 % panels compared to the base material.