Experimental study for selection of composite materials used in thermal insulation

Abstract EN

The present work deals with the development of a thermal composite insulation by using concrete as the main component with a number of thermal insulation materials, including polyester, cork, chaff, rice husk, sheep manure, sheep wool, glass, cotton, wax and emulsion resin.

Various mechanical and thermal properties of the composite insulation are evaluated.

These properties help in estimating their suitability and potential for various applications in thermal insulation and thus utilizing waste and reduce environmental concerns.The results obtained from this study are useful for the prediction of thermal conductivity of thermal insulation building blocks.

Experimental results showed that the best material is polyester with average thermal conductivity of (0.734557 W/m.oC) then cork, chaff, rice husk, sheep manure, sheep wool and wax are good insulators, because of their low conductivity.

But poor thermal insulators are glass and emulsion resin, because of their high thermal conductivity results comparatively.

Especially 2% emulsion resin which has high average thermal conductivity as it is (1.290638 W/m.oC).

Glass and resin are not suitable less use for the validation of experimental results, because of their high thermal conductivity, and as resin which high cost.

So, they are difficult to acquire for practical purpose.

Addition of wax significantly decreases thermal conductivity.

It was shown that addition 0.3 wt% wax and 0.5 wt% wax to the concrete resulted in (0.008342 W/m.oC) and (0.027716 W/m.oC) decrease in average thermal conductivity respectively.

And addition emulsion resin to the concrete causes decrease in average thermal conductivity.

Also it was shown 0.3 wt% and 0.5 wt% resulted in (0.131417 W/m.oC) and (0.156545 W/m.oC) decrease in average thermal conductivity respectively.

The strongest material used in the present work is an emulsion resin, exactly 2.3 %wt emulsion resin, since it has compact strength (25.591 MPa).

But the weakest one is cork and chaff which have compact strength of (1.4731Mpa and 1.3469 MPa) respectively