Energy Saving by Applying Different Wall Thermal Insulations on a Room at Malaysian Institution

Mohammed W. Muhieldeen; Q.Y. Wong; Ummi Zulaikha Abd Rahman; Wah Yen Tey

Authors

Mohammed W. Muhieldeen Faculty of Engineering, Technology and Built Environment, Mechanical Engineering, UCSI University, Cheras, Malaysia
Q.Y. Wong Faculty of Engineering, Technology and Built Environment, Mechanical Engineering, UCSI University, Cheras, Malaysia
Ummi Zulaikha Abd Rahman Faculty of Engineering, Technology and Built Environment, Mechanical Engineering, UCSI University, Cheras, Malaysia
Wah Yen Tey Faculty of Engineering, Technology and Built Environment, Mechanical Engineering, UCSI University, Cheras, Malaysia

Keywords:

Saving energy, thermal insulation, cooling load, tropical climate

Abstract

In a hot and humid climate country, many passive methods have been presented to reduce cooling load of buildings. Nowadays, energy saving has become one of the popular topicsover the world. The global warming has caused the high electricity consumption due to the high cooling load demand of the buildings. Where found exterior wall is an important source of heat transfer for the room because wall works as a store for heat. The aim of this study is to evaluate cooling load based on different types of wall thermal insulation. Three different types of material have been selected for wall insulation which are Polyethylene Aluminium Single Bubble (PASB), Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) foam and Rockwool, as well as without insulation. The insulating materials are placed on the front wall of a test room built with dimension 1.2m x 0.8m x 0.8m. Two measuring equipment have been used through this study, Anemometer to measure the air temperature, and Infrared Thermometer to measure the surface temperature of the walls. Thedata show that rockwool is a better insulation material to reduce the heating load inside the room, the potential temperature reduction inside the room was around 3.85%, where PASB insulation reduced only 2.49% and EPS insulation reduced only 0.89%,whichis not much effective as compared to Rockwool. The results show that Rockwool has a potential saving of RM40 per month based on the prototype dimensions without using air condition unit.