Thermal performance of recycled globigerina limestone as a building material

Abstract

The main goal of this dissertation is to study the thermal performance and properties of an innovative constructional method, i.e. constructing new buildings by using a combination of plastic bags and earth material. The plastic bags act as the container of the final element, holding in place the earth material. On the other hand, the earth material acts as the bulk of the portion, giving it all necessary properties to perform similarly to the traditional blockwork. In this study, construction and demolition waste was proposed to be used as the earth material, re-using what society perceives as a burden to create a new, more energy effective product. The aim was to benefit from the entrapped air pockets contained in a crushed state material so to reduce the heat transfer from the external environment into a controlled internal microclimate. In order to test this theory, the calibrated hot box system was used, in accordance to the EN ISO 8990:1994, calculating the U-Value of any material by heating one side of the wall and monitoring the heat transfer on the other side, until steady state conditions are met. Sieved globigerina and coralline limestone aggregates were used as the earth material, in order to obtain a controlled result, while gabions formed the wall instead of plastic bags so to maintain a pre-determined size and make it possible to compare results to the traditional methods of construction. The final results showed an average difference of 50.4% and 52.5% between the u-values of globigerina and coralline limestone aggregates respectively, and the limestone masonry block wall. This renders such walling system to be in conformity with the building regulations.