Suresh Mane,
- Principal, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dr. D. Y. Patil Prathisthan’s College of Engineering, Salokhenagar, Kolhapur Maharashtra, India
Abstract
This case study is about insulating an education building where steel sheets are used on the rooftop. Steel roof sheets are good conductors of heat and due to which the classrooms below become heated up especially in the summer season from January to May every year. This educational building was constructed in 2014 and the heat build-up is intense and hence the top floor i.e. second floor was mostly unutilised or underutilised. But due to increase in intake the institution was compelled to make use of the top floor class rooms as construction of one more floor was cost intensive and time consuming. To make sitting in the class room comfortable there are various methods to reduce the heat ingress through the roof and keep the room cool. Roofs almost conduct 50% of the heat and 30 to 40% comes through the glass windows in an average building. This study approaches to reduce the heat ingress by various means. First is the use of gypsum board 12 mm as a false ceiling material and in the second room we are used the same gypsum board 12 mm thick for false ceiling but over that we are put one more insulating material that is thermocol. The four rooms basically around the same location that is Salokhenagar in Kolhapur and at the same longitude and latitude (Lat 16.667o, Long 74.205o) and facing the same direction i.e. facing south. We are studying four rooms from sustainability aspect to reduce the use of electrical energy for cooling purpose. Management had advised to put air conditioners in these rooms because of the huge number of admissions and shortage of classrooms. Construction of new class rooms over the existing second floor is time consuming and hence not feasible in a short span of time. The methods which are we are adopted for false ceiling was gypsum board then secondly false ceiling with gypsum board plus 25 of thermocol and lastly gypsum board plus thermocol and insulating the glass panes of windows using sun control film. The results are very encouraging. The room temperature has shown decline with each of the three measures adopted. Even in a cold month of November it is observed that there is @ 1 degree Fahrenheit reduction in temperature for each of the passive methodology adopted and overall there was 4 degree Fahrenheit temperature reduction in the room with gypsum board, thermocol and sun control film application (i.e. @ 5% reduction in overall temperature).
Keywords: Insulation of ceiling, Gypsum board, Thermocol sheet, Passive cooling, Steel roof, sustainability aspect
[This article belongs to Journal of Energy, Environment & Carbon Credits(joeecc)]
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Journal of Energy, Environment & Carbon Credits
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 02 |
| Received | July 22, 2024 |
| Accepted | July 30, 2024 |
| Published | August 20, 2024 |
