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Alveolar bricks are being introduced in building sector due to the simplicity of their construction system
and to the elimination of the insulation material. Nevertheless, it is not clear if this new system is energetically
efficient and which is its thermal behaviour. This paper presents an experimental and theoretical
study to evaluate the thermal behaviour of the alveolar brick construction system, compared with a
traditional Mediterranean brick system with insulation. The experimental study consists of measuring
the thermal performance of four real house-like cubicles.
The thermal transmittance in steady-state, also known as U-value, is calculated theoretically and
experimentally for each cubicle, presenting the insulated cubicles as the best construction system, with
differences around 45% in comparison to the alveolar one. On the other hand, experimental results show
significantly smaller differences on the energy consumption between the alveolar and insulated construction
systems during summer period (around 13% higher for the alveolar cubicle). These values demonstrate
the high thermal efficiency of the alveolar system. In addition, the lack of agreement between
the measured energy consumption and the calculated U-values, guides the authors to analyze the thermal
inertia of the different building components. Therefore, several transient parameters, extracted from
the heat transfer matrix and from experimental data, are also evaluated. It can be concluded that the alveolar
brick construction system presents higher thermal inertia than the insulated one, justifying the low
measured energy consumption.
The work was partially funded by the Spanish government (ENE2008-06687-C02-01/CON) and the European Union (COST Action COST TU0802), in collaboration with the companies Synthesia, Honeywell, Gremi de Rajolers, Hispalyt, Prefabricats Lacoma, Cerámicas Sampedro, and Cityhall of Puigverd de Lleida. The authors would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given to their research group (2009 SGR 534). |
