Comparison of Cooling Energy for Different Insulation Materials of an Office Building in Hyderabad Pakistan

Abstract

Energy-Efficient building construction is one of the important concerns nowadays. Heat is transferred through building envelope which increases its indoor temperature. The air conditioning system contributes major share of overall energy consumption to fulfill the need of thermal comfort. In addressing the matter, thermal insulation is one of the proficient method to reduce energy consumption. The aim of this research is to investigate efficient insulation material for building’s roof and walls. For this purpose, a single office room was modelled and simulated using Sketch-Up and Energy-Plus respectively. The building with different insulation materials such as, expanded polystyrene, extruded polystyrene and polyurethane foam were compared with conventional (without insulation) building. The average cooling energy was analyzed by changing insulation materials with same thickness in roof and walls. The results showed that, the polyurethane foam consumes least and saves highest cooling energy in all cases. Throughout seasonal year, about 4.66-5.20%, 22.43-25.12% and 30.90-35.26% of cooling energy was saved by using above three insulation materials in roof, walls and roof-walls respectively. Therefore, the proposed insulation material is most efficient, which could be used in buildings to save significant amount of energy and to provide better thermal comfortable environment.