Energy content of walling materials- a comparison of mud concrete blocks, bricks cabook and cement blocks in tropics

Abstract

The concept of embodied energy can be used to understand and develop energy saving products or services. By definition the embodied energy is sum of all the types of energy consumed while producing specific product or a service. The embodied energy can be calculated by dividing the total; process of production and measuring each and every process energy consumption. The mud concrete block is a novel ecological walling material. The intention of this paper is to calculate embodied energy and carbon emission, compare in a real world scenario of constructing one square (10ft x10ft) wall of mud concrete block and compare with industrialized walling materials such as brick and cement blocks. The energy consumption of mud concrete block was on account of transport of raw materials (cement) to the factory and the already embedded energy of cement. The cement was a governing raw material in adding energy content to the total embedded energy of mud concrete block. The brick showed comparatively highest embedded energy. And the cement block had intermediate energy content. The Brick production was using more or less sustainable energy sources such as bio mass, bio mass is renewable. But mud concrete block and cement block using non renewable energy sources which can be replaced by renewable energy sources