Thermal Study of Clay Bricks Reinforced by Dry-Grass Fibers

Abstract

This paper assesses the dynamic thermal inertia performance of unfired clay bricks with dry-grass fiber additives. The used raw material was retrieved from Ifrane in Morocco. The used clay was illite with a 59.60% silicon proportion. Multiple percentages (0%, 1%, 7%, and 15%) were analyzed in this study. The dynamic thermal inertia simulation was carried out in TRNSYS software to investigate the specimens’ time lag, decrement factor, and heating and cooling loads. For this purpose, a reference house with three different wall thicknesses (0.20, 0.25, and 0.30 m) was evaluated. Collected findings reflected great time lag improvements. With the incorporation of 15% additive, 13.11 h was recorded. This reflected a thermal gain of 49.12% with the use of 0.30-m-thick walls. Decrement factor analysis also recorded interesting improvements. Thermal cooling and heating loads also recorded prominent energy savings of 95% and 60%, respectively. Finally, adopting thicker building walls recorded great thermal gains in the range of 60%.