IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i7p5685-d1106122.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Insulation Performance of Building Components and Effect on the Cooling Load of Homes in Saudi Arabia

Author

Listed:
  • Abdulhamid Al-Abduljabbar

    (Mechanical Engineering Department, King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia)

  • Majid Al-Mogbel

    (Sarh Attaqnia Co., Riyadh 11622, Saudi Arabia)

  • Syed Noman Danish

    (Sustainable Energy Technologies Center, King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia
    K.A.CARE Energy Research and Innovation Center at Riyadh, King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia)

  • Abdelrahman El-Leathy

    (Mechanical Engineering Department, King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia
    K.A.CARE Energy Research and Innovation Center at Riyadh, King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia
    Mechanical Power Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Helwan University, Cairo 11718, Egypt)

Abstract

A common practice in the construction of residential and commercial buildings in Saudi Arabia is to insulate the outer walls and windows only. Other building components such as the roof, columns and slabs, and doors are usually neglected. Moreover, vital components such as the roof and windows are especially neglected in commercially built residential and commercial buildings. The aim of this study is to put this common impression and practice to the test by quantifying the contribution of every building component to the overall air-conditioning load of the building. The hypothesis evaluated in this paper is that despite the common practices, there could be an optimum selection of insulators for the building components that yields the lowest energy consumption and maximum savings not only in energy costs but also installation costs. The required air-conditioning load is determined using manual calculations and the HAP software package for 1022 possible configurations. The findings of the analysis point to the importance of the roof, as it is the major contributor to the thermal load, followed closely by columns and slabs, with 44.2% of the overall cooling load. It is found that a single wall consisting of 2 cm of cement plaster, 20 cm of cement–polyurethane brick, and 2 cm of cement plaster is less expensive and has higher thermal resistance than any of the more expensive double walls. The study found one scenario of possible configurations with the optimized selection of building materials and their insulation materials that provides the most effective insulation at the lowest cost.

Suggested Citation

  • Abdulhamid Al-Abduljabbar & Majid Al-Mogbel & Syed Noman Danish & Abdelrahman El-Leathy, 2023. "Insulation Performance of Building Components and Effect on the Cooling Load of Homes in Saudi Arabia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-18, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:7:p:5685-:d:1106122
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/7/5685/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/7/5685/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ucar, Aynur & Balo, Figen, 2009. "Effect of fuel type on the optimum thickness of selected insulation materials for the four different climatic regions of Turkey," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(5), pages 730-736, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Abdul Mujeebu, Muhammad & Ashraf, Noman, 2024. "Energy-saving benefits of thermal insulation and glazing in code-compliant office building in cooling-dominated climates," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Axaopoulos, Ioannis & Axaopoulos, Petros & Gelegenis, John, 2014. "Optimum insulation thickness for external walls on different orientations considering the speed and direction of the wind," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 167-175.
    2. Omer Kaynakli, 2011. "Parametric Investigation of Optimum Thermal Insulation Thickness for External Walls," Energies, MDPI, vol. 4(6), pages 1-15, June.
    3. Al-Sanea, Sami A. & Zedan, M.F., 2011. "Improving thermal performance of building walls by optimizing insulation layer distribution and thickness for same thermal mass," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(9), pages 3113-3124.
    4. Aditya, L. & Mahlia, T.M.I. & Rismanchi, B. & Ng, H.M. & Hasan, M.H. & Metselaar, H.S.C. & Muraza, Oki & Aditiya, H.B., 2017. "A review on insulation materials for energy conservation in buildings," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 1352-1365.
    5. Küçüktopcu, Erdem & Cemek, Bilal, 2018. "A study on environmental impact of insulation thickness of poultry building walls," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 583-590.
    6. Daouas, Naouel, 2011. "A study on optimum insulation thickness in walls and energy savings in Tunisian buildings based on analytical calculation of cooling and heating transmission loads," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 156-164, January.
    7. Ricciardi, P. & Belloni, E. & Cotana, F., 2014. "Innovative panels with recycled materials: Thermal and acoustic performance and Life Cycle Assessment," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 150-162.
    8. Moretti, Elisa & Belloni, Elisa & Agosti, Fabrizio, 2016. "Innovative mineral fiber insulation panels for buildings: Thermal and acoustic characterization," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 421-432.
    9. Gelegenis, John J., 2009. "A simplified quadratic expression for the approximate estimation of heating degree-days to any base temperature," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(10), pages 1986-1994, October.
    10. Zhang, L.Y. & Jin, L.W. & Wang, Z.N. & Zhang, J.Y. & Liu, X. & Zhang, L.H., 2017. "Effects of wall configuration on building energy performance subject to different climatic zones of China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 185(P2), pages 1565-1573.
    11. Stevanović, Sanja, 2013. "Optimization of passive solar design strategies: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 177-196.
    12. Jihui Yuan & Craig Farnham & Kazuo Emura, 2017. "Optimum Insulation Thickness for Building Exterior Walls in 32 Regions of China to Save Energy and Reduce CO 2 Emissions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-13, September.
    13. Niemierko, Rochus & Töppel, Jannick & Tränkler, Timm, 2019. "A D-vine copula quantile regression approach for the prediction of residential heating energy consumption based on historical data," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 233, pages 691-708.
    14. Rodrigues, Eugénio & Gaspar, Adélio Rodrigues & Gomes, Álvaro, 2014. "Improving thermal performance of automatically generated floor plans using a geometric variable sequential optimization procedure," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 200-215.
    15. Yildiz, Abdullah & Ersöz, Mustafa Ali, 2016. "The effect of wind speed on the economical optimum insulation thickness for HVAC duct applications," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 1289-1300.
    16. Méndez Echenagucia, Tomás & Capozzoli, Alfonso & Cascone, Ylenia & Sassone, Mario, 2015. "The early design stage of a building envelope: Multi-objective search through heating, cooling and lighting energy performance analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 577-591.
    17. Bahadori, Alireza & Vuthaluru, Hari B., 2010. "A simple method for the estimation of thermal insulation thickness," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 613-619, February.
    18. Yu, Jinghua & Yang, Changzhi & Tian, Liwei & Liao, Dan, 2009. "A study on optimum insulation thicknesses of external walls in hot summer and cold winter zone of China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(11), pages 2520-2529, November.
    19. Nematchoua, Modeste Kameni & Raminosoa, Chrysostôme R.R. & Mamiharijaona, Ramaroson & René, Tchinda & Orosa, José A. & Elvis, Watis & Meukam, Pierre, 2015. "Study of the economical and optimum thermal insulation thickness for buildings in a wet and hot tropical climate: Case of Cameroon," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 1192-1202.
    20. Rehman, Hassam Ur, 2017. "Experimental performance evaluation of solid concrete and dry insulation materials for passive buildings in hot and humid climatic conditions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 185(P2), pages 1585-1594.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:7:p:5685-:d:1106122. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.