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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Earth has been used as a building material since the beginning of civilizations and its utilization was
widespread to most regions of the world, promoted by the high availability, easy access, and low cost
of the material. As result of the generalised use of raw earth as building material, many earthen building
techniques were developed through time, where adobe masonry, rammed earth and wattle-and-daub are
among the most important. Currently, it is estimated that one quarter of the world's population lives in
buildings made of earth. However, during the last century, earthen materials fell into disuse in several
developed countries with the popularization of concrete, steel and fire bricks. Nevertheless, earthen
architecture has been receiving increasing attention in the last few decades, driven by its green building
potential and by other features of earthen materials, which includes, among others, unique aesthetics
and hygrothermal regulation capacity.
Several studies have been developed to characterize earthen solutions concerning physical and
mechanical properties. However, regarding the thermal behaviour, it is known that the thermal
conductivity of rammed earth is a parameter that depends on the characteristics of the soil (particle size
distribution, mineralogy, etc.) and moisture content. Thus, given the soils variability, it becomes clear
that further investigation should be addressed to characterize the thermal performance of rammed earth
solutions, contributing to define more accurate thermal conductivity values for the design of rammed
earth buildings. On this regard, this paper presents an experimental study that aims to characterize the
thermal behaviour of rammed earth built with different soils and with different thicknesses. A
continuous measurement allowed to obtain heat fluxes, inner surface temperatures and the thermal
transmission coefficient of the tested rammed earth walls solutions. Values of 0.72 W/mºC and 1.17
W/mºC were obtained for the thermal conductivity, showing the thermal behaviour variability
depending on the soil composition. It was also confirmed that thickness significantly influences the
earthen solution thermal behaviour, being verified that the thermal transmission coefficient of a 50 cm
thick wall is about 30% lower than the one verified for the wall with 35 cm, built with the same soil.
Description
Keywords
Sustainability Earth construction Rammed earth Thermal performance
Citation
Luso, Eduarda; Cabello, Isabelle; Silva, Rui; Briga-Sá, Ana (2024). An experimental analysis on the thermal performance of rammed earth walls. In 10th Euro-American Congress on Construction Pathology, Rehabilitation Technology and Heritage Management, REHABEND 2024: book of abstracts. ISBN 978-84-09-58990-6
Publisher
University of Cantabria - Building Technology R&D Group