Sheep Wool as a Construction Material for Energy Efficiency Improvement

Abstract

Abstract:The building sector is responsible for 40% of the current CO2 emissions as well as energy consumption. Sustainability and energy efficiency of buildings are currently being evaluated, not only based on thermal insulation qualities and energy demands, but also based on primary energy demand, CO2 reductions and the ecological properties of the materials used. Therefore, in order to make buildings as sustainable as possible, it is crucial to maximize the use of ecological materials. This study explores alternative usage of sheep wool as a construction material beyond its traditional application in the textile industry. Another goal of this research was to study the feasibility of replacement of commonly used thermal insulations with natural and renewable materials which have better environmental and primary energy values. Building physics, energy and environmental characteristics were evaluated and compared based on hygrothermal simulation and ecological balance methods. The observations demonstrate that sheep wool, compared with mineral wool and calcium silicate, provides comparable thermal insulation characteristics, and in some applications even reveals better performance. OPEN ACCESSEnergies 2015, 8 5766

Characterization of Sheep Wool as a Sustainable Material for Acoustic Applications

“…The origin of these materials can be vegetable or animal so their manufacture has a low environmental impact due to the energy saved in the production process. Several papers focused their investigations on thermal insulation [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. Other authors have studied natural fibers for acoustic applications [9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17].…”

Energy and Environmental Evaluation of Non-Transparent Constructions of Building Envelope for Wooden Houses

“…This is confirmed by the results from evaluation of external wall compositions designed from massive wood panels with straw, fleece, and fiberboard insulations (Table 7). A different study [46] indicated that fleece has low global warming potential. Alternative 18, the above-the-ground floor construction with fleece thermal insulation between I-profiles, was the best in terms of EE, SO2eq emissions, and OI3CON environmental indicators ( Figure 7) and mass per unit area ( Figure 6).…”

Organized Framework of Main Possible Applications of Sheep Wool Fibers in Building Components

“…Acoustic and thermal insulation of sheep wool have been also investigated by Korjenic et al [4]. They found that sheep wool has good acoustical performances suitable as noise barriers, sound acoustic absorbers inside a room, or vibration insulators.…”

“…However, it is similar to cellulose (∆Lw = 22 dB) or coco fiber (∆Lw = 23 dB) [16,17] noise reduction. Korjenic [4] also investigated a case of wall renovation by using an 8 cm thick layer of sheep wool insulating material. By using statistics and hygrothermal simulation programs a building-physics assessment was carried out to measure moisture content and dynamic thermal transmittance.…”