“Determination of the optimum thickness of insulation for building walls in Nablus”
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Date
2019-05-20
Authors
Jayyousi, Abeer
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Abstract
This research performs a comparison between two economical approaches in determining optimal insulation thickness for cooling season for buildings in Palestine, life cycle costing (LCC) and P1-P2. The analysis is done once without taking the heat gain from solar radiation incident into 4 oriented walls (S, N, E and W) and another time with considering it.
Buildings sector consumes 43% of total Palestinian energy. Although building insulation is a low investment with guaranteed benefits alternative, it is still elective in Palestine. The city of Nablus was considered in the analysis. The analysis takes into consideration typical external walls construction, insulation types, weather data, electricity prices, cooling equipment conversion efficiencies, and market financial parameters. Two types of insulation were studied which are polystyrene (denoted by I-1) and polyurethane (denoted by I-2). For energy type, electricity is assumed for summer cooling.
Optimal insulation thicknesses were calculated assuming 18 °C base temperatures Tb and T_sa as Tb when considering solar heat gain. Results show that insulation type have the highest significant effect on optimal insulation thickness. Polystyrene (I-1) and Polyurethane (I-2) investment costs are 83 and 171.43 $/m3, respectively. Despite that, same optimum financial benefits can be achieved using (I-2) at half thickness compared to (I-1). For all cases, optimal thickness varied between 2 and 7 cm which is still applicable.
The researcher believes that insulating buildings in Palestine will give a great push in energy conservation sector, and supports decision makers to develop a Palestinian building code that considers building insulation a mandatory item. Fortunately, results proved that it is financially attractive.