BIOMIMICRY BASED THERMALLY RESISTANT WALLING UNIT DESIGN

Abstract

The building industry has identified thermal comfort as one of its biggest concerns in providing suitable habitable conditions. Significant research is ongoing to make new types of building materials that provide optimum thermal comfort in the indoor conditions of the built environment. The scope of this research is limited to India's Composite Climatic zone; the focus is on the ‘Form’ of the walling unit and its capability to reduce the transfer of heat from the outdoor to indoors. This investigation focuses on developing a walling unit, which consumes less raw materials by virtue of its form and has better thermal performance than the products presently available in the market within the same category. The innovative design approach of Biomimicry is opted to test multiple options for the walling unit design. Biomimicry is a process of referring to forms, functional or interaction mechanisms in nature to resolve human problems. The expertise of nature in solving problems is primarily untapped. It has many advantages, including being inherently efficient, and time-tested (Benyus, 2002), to state a few. The research, therefore, leads to the development of a biomimicry-based alternative to conventional brick/cement blocks used as walling units. The main feature of the new walling unit is to have a reduced U-value as a solution to improving thermal comfort inside the building. The research commences with a literature review in which some basic important topics are discussed. Such as, the different types of walling assemblies in India, the novelty and need of the hour, a comparative analysis of the different walling unit types, the current status of the Indian market leading to the finalisation of the walling unit type most apt to be used in the thesis (brick masonry unit), a preliminary study of the shortlisted biomimetic inspirations and basics of thermal study and discussion on the use of Ansys® simulation method. The subsequent step in the study has been to ensure that the form actually influences the material's thermal behaviour. A steady-state one-dimensional thermal analysis takes the modular fired clay brick from IS 1077-1992 standard as the base case. The other values required to perform the analysis are adapted from the values prescribed in the Energy Conservation Building Code published by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, Government of India, and BS ISO 6946:2007. The thermal study is validated manually by generating a schematic that represents the system setup for simulations and calculating the results.