In situ thermal characterization of rice straw envelope of an outdoor test room

On the thermal performance of naturally ventilated room with straw insulation retrofitted envelope for different climatic zones of India

“…The studies pertaining to thermal performance of straw envelope are summarized in table 1. With the exception of the study by Sabapathy and Gedupudi [18], the test room or buildings considered in these had the following common features: (a) the envelope consisted of straw of large thickness (>20 cm) in the form of bales/panels or as part of a composite wall, (b) the straw wall forms the load-bearing component of the building envelope, and (c) the straw surface is protected by a coating of some type of plaster. The ability of the thick straw bales to inhibit heat transfer and maintain stable indoor environment is evident from the studies.…”

“…Gedupudi [18] (2020) Experiment on straw test room in Chennai, India Straw cells of 10 cm thickness supported by plywood frame 10-day monitoring period in warm conditions (maximum outdoor air temperature reaching up to 43 The following literature review briefly covers the three topics of interest in the current work: (i) thermal performance of straw based constructions, (ii) passive technique of using building insulation materials in the envelope as well as thermal comfort, in the context of Indian climates, and (iii) some of the transient numerical studies carried out on indoor spaces under different ventilation conditions.…”

“…The use of sol-air temperature and its calculation using an appropriate model were validated through experiments conducted on a straw-based outdoor test room. In a previous work by the authors [18], four commonly used models (McAdams, BLAST, MoWiTT, and DOE-2) were compared for estimating the outside surface heat transfer coefficient (h o,conv ) and subsequently h o and T sol against the experimental data collected from the test room. The models consider a number of factors influencing the sol-air temperature including wind direction, roughness of the building surface, terrain roughness, and height of the building.…”

“…The outside heat transfer coefficient h o is a combination of convection (h o,conv ) and radiation (h o,rad ) components. To estimate the complex convective component [68],the DOE-2 model[69] is selected based on a previous experimental work[18] carried out by the authors. The outside surface boundary condition with a 24-hour time period (single representative day) is repeated until the solution enters a steady periodic state.…”

On the thermal performance of naturally ventilated room with straw insulation retrofitted envelope for different climatic zones of India

“…Validation of the boundary conditionsThe use of sol-air temperature and its calculation using an appropriate model were validated through experiments conducted on a straw-based outdoor test room. In a previous work by the authors[18], four commonly used models (McAdams, BLAST, MoWiTT, and DOE-2) were compared for estimating the outside surface heat transfer coefficient (h o,conv ) and subsequently h o and T sol against the experimental data collected from the test room. The models consider a number of factors influencing the sol-air temperature including wind direction, roughness of the building surface, terrain roughness, and height of the building.…”