Thermal Conductivity of Building Materials in Iraq

Abstract

Thermophysical Properties of Building Materials are Considered to have high importance in predicting building thermal performance, calculating thermal loads inside building, and optimizing the use of a building and insulating materials. Due to the lack of measurements of local building materials properties, designers and air- conditioning engineers have no choice but to use the published foreign data, which probably leads to inaccurate predictions of thermal loads and may give a false thermal performance. At the same time, it leads to an over-designed capacity of air- conditioning systems that lead to increased energy consumption in the building. Thus, it is clear that it was important to conduct this research to evaluate the thermal conductivity and thermal resistance of Iraqi building materials. The number of the local building materials were listed, and specimens were collected from their sites, factories, and suppliers such as bricks, stones, concrete products, gypsum, etc. Those samples were dimensioned to the specific size required when a measurement was conducted by the Hot Wire method. All measurements were carried out at room temperature. The relationship between thermal conductivity, density, moisture content, and pressure for a number of materials was Studied. A comparison between the measurements of the Iraqi building materials and results published in the ASHRAE, CIBS Guide, Australian Specifications, and Jordanian Specifications was made. However, the availability of such data is important for the climatic design of buildings, thermal load calculations for air- conditioning, and choosing the insulating materials.

The effect of basic building materials and their paving shapes on the thermal performance of walls in Iraqi residential buildings

“…Iraqi. [2][3]7] In order to enhance the realism of the study, the researchers chose to employ a contemporary residential compound located in Kirkuk, Iraq, namely the Madinaty compound center, situated at a latitude of 35.5°. The chosen approach included applying the working assumption to a quadrilateral block model consisting of four distinct residential units with varying orientations.…”

“…Also, some building materials can be recycled by mixing them in different amounts to improve their thermal performance by lowering the total thermal conductivity of the wall. This can be done with materials like concrete, which has a big effect on the thermal conductivity values, especially when recycled coarse aggregate is used (Al-Doury et al, 2021; Zhu et al, 2015) [2,17] . Some computer programs that perform simulations on an analysis of the thermal performance of external surfaces have helped in understanding the significant impact of the type and shape of materials used in construction on the thermal load calculations of buildings, the time delay for the external heat to reach the airconditioned space (Udawattha & Halwatura, 2018; Zainal & Yumruta\cs, 2015) [15][16] , and even taking into consideration the exterior colors of the walls and ceilings, which have a role in developing their thermal performance (Abdullah & Faraj, 2022) [1] .…”

Reducing the cost of energy used for adaptation by using different exterior wall covering materials in Iraq

“…The maximum and minimum temperatures for each month, the maximum temperatures for six months for each day, and the maximum temperatures for five months and every hour of the day for 2020 in Baghdad are shown in Figures 1, 2, and 3, respectively. [30]- [32]. the intensity of solar radiation for four months, every hour of the day, is shown in Figure 4 [33].…”