Development of an insulation plaster for fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) concrete composites using cementitious material

Abstract

The energy used to maintain the thermal comfort of building greatly contributes the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and global warming. This study developed a sustainable cost-effective rice husk ash (RHA) based mortar for the wall plaster to improve the thermal insulation, reduce the operational energy and enable the thermal comfort. RHA was partially replaced the sand in the conventional mortar to produce the RHA based plaster. Compressive strength and thermal conductivity tests were conducted, and the results highlight that the RHA can be replaced up to 30% of sand in the conventional mortar to produce a wall plaster with improved thermal insulation with adequate compressive strength. Further, this study investigates the thermal performance of the RHA-based plaster through measured the heat transfer rate under full open weather conditions. Two identical prototype model houses were constructed with RHA-based plaster and conventional plaster, and internal and external wall surface temperatures were measured for 3-days cycles. The results highlighted that on average peak heat flux reduction formed by the RHA-based plaster mortar was 10%. The average daily heat transfer reduction across the wall with RHA-based plaster was 26%. Further, results show that RHA-based plaster can reduce the energy that required to enable the thermal comfort by about 9% than the conventional mortar. The environmental impact analysis was also conducted to assess the sustainable performance of RHA-based mortar. The assessment highlights that RHA-based mortar has less environmental impact than the conventional mortar. Further, the CO2 emission produced by the production of RHA-based mortar is about 14% less than that of from conventional mortar. At last stage the developed plaster was applied with CFRP specimens and checked for the thermal test and bond test using single shear test. 70% to 73% fire resistance can be achieved respect to the commercially available material (Vermiculite-cement).