Heat transfer characteristics of locally manufactured hollow concrete blocks

Abstract

The paper is focused on the investigation of the thermal properties of traditional local building blocks with the aim of understanding its resistance to the transfer of heat. The building blocks under test shall be hollow concrete blocks (HCBs) manufactured by a local company. The hot box method technique shall be applied to obtain values of the thermal conductivity of the respective HCBs being tested. Dimensions and weight of these blocks shall be recorded and compression testing carried out. The correlation between thermal conductivities and compression strength shall provide useful information on the thermo-physical behaviour of these building elements. The first part of this paper reports on the actual setup of the hot box. It is then followed by the description of the testing methodology adopted and calculations applied to obtain values for comparisons between the different HCBs tested. The final part of the paper is then focused on the discussion of results and the ultimate conclusions. The aim is to succeed in obtaining a correlation between U-values of existing local HCBs, their density and compressive strength, which will enable future extrapolation of results, based on simple measurements such as density.