Thermal Conductivity of Building Materials in Iraq

Thermophysical Properties of Building Materials are Considered to have high importance in predicting building thermal performance, calculating thermal loads inside building, and optimizing the use of a building and insulating materials. Due to the lack of measurements of local building materials properties, designers and air- conditioning engineers have no choice but to use the published foreign data, which probably leads to inaccurate predictions of thermal loads and may give a false thermal performance. At the same time, it leads to an over-designed capacity of air- conditioning systems that lead to increased energy consumption in the building. Thus, it is clear that it was important to conduct this research to evaluate the thermal conductivity and thermal resistance of Iraqi building materials. The number of the local building materials were listed, and specimens were collected from their sites, factories, and suppliers such as bricks, stones, concrete products, gypsum, etc. Those samples were dimensioned to the specific size required when a measurement was conducted by the Hot Wire method. All measurements were carried out at room temperature. The relationship between thermal conductivity, density, moisture content, and pressure for a number of materials was Studied. A comparison between the measurements of the Iraqi building materials and results published in the ASHRAE, CIBS Guide, Australian Specifications, and Jordanian Specifications was made. However, the availability of such data is important for the climatic design of buildings, thermal load calculations for air- conditioning, and choosing the insulating materials.