Rapidly constructed two storey thermally comfortable houses for tropical climates with light weight loadbearing concrete panels

Abstract

Apartments in tall buildings are often promoted as a solution to rapid urban migration that is happening in the world. However, all the apartment houses that have been undertaken in many parts of the world in large cities have not resulted in desirable results all the time. Therefore, it would be prudent to have high-density developments on small blocks of land with detached or semi-attached housing. Such high-density developments will be a special challenge in tropical climates when the urban heat island effects are considered since a high density of houses can often lead to lack of green cover, and hence to have somewhat higher temperatures than the averages predicted for that locality. The other biggest challenge that is faced in countries with tropical climatic conditions is the extensive use of natural resources based walling materials like fired clay bricks, concrete blocks, etc.; this practice has led to over-exploitation of natural resources and hence it is prudent to explore the possibility of using alternative sources that will use much less amount of natural resources. In this context, converting various types of waste materials to a useful building material will also play a major role. One such material is the lightweight concrete panels produced to have 70% of the volume as air using recycled already used Expanded Poly-Styrene (EPS) panels manufactured in modular form with the dimensions of 0.6 m of length, 2.4 m of height and in thicknesses of 75 mm, 100 mm, 150 mm, etc. The use of panels instead of individual small units will allow rapid construction of a house, and it is shown that it is possible to complete one such house having about 200 m2 with a rooftop terrace in less than 30 working days by employing 6 Nos of semi-skilled workers. In a detailed study carried out on with the tropical climatic conditions prevailing in Sri Lanka as a case study, it is shown that there are so many strategies that can be very effectively used to make such houses extremely thermally comfortable while almost eliminating the heat island effects even if a high density has been achieved with individual blocks as small as 200 m2. The research paper is intended to describe all these aspects by taking an actual two storey house with roof terrace constructed in Sri Lanka in the wet zone.