| Popis: |
Wood-plastic composites (WPCs) are becoming one of the most attractive materials in building envelopes. In addition to WPCs' architectural and design attraction, they can enhance the thermal performance of buildings by acting as insulation materials. The thermal performance of building materials requires new experimental methods that can simulate true indoor/outdoor temperatures. In this study, a simple quasi-steady heating film (QSHF) method is devised to measure the thermal conductivity of WPC samples utilizing blocks of standard materials with known thermal conductivity. QSHF device uses a 10cm×10cm×0.5mm silicon heating film controlled by a temperature regulator and several transparent acrylic square blocks of the same size with 10mm thickness as the standard materials along with various specially designed WPC samples for Kuwait. The WPC samples' top surface is considered the cold side of the system, which is open to indoor temperatures of 22 to 23 oC. The bottom layer is maintained at fixed temperatures ranging from 25 to 55 oC to simulate the outdoor temperatures of a hot subtropical desert environment like Kuwait. The thermal conductivity of several WPCs type namely FB16, FB18W, CD, and TD were obtained as 0.0912, 0.1174, 0.3453, and 0.3078 W/m.K, respectively. Experimental results for DP45-1 were not consistent at different temperatures. hence Multiphysics CFD simulation was conducted for DP45 which shows strong 2D effects. A typical building sample was also modelled in TRNSYS to compare cooling loads with and without WPC. Also, the limitations and advantages of using QSHF method are discussed. |
