Investigating the Effect of Using a Thermal Insulation Layer on the Facade on the Amount of Carbon Emission (a case study of a residential building in Tehran)

Darabi, Amir Sina; Ravanshadnia, Mehdi

doi:10.22065/jsce.2024.460180.3430

Investigating the Effect of Using a Thermal Insulation Layer on the Facade on the Amount of Carbon Emission (a case study of a residential building in Tehran)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

amir sina darabi

Mehdi Ravanshadnia

Faculty of Civil Engineering, Science and Research Branch˓ Islamic Azad university˓ Tehran˓ Iran

10.22065/jsce.2024.460180.3430

Abstract

The increasing population of cities in the country has caused an increase in the amount of construction and construction activities. The construction industry uses many natural resources and produces a large amount of greenhouse gases. Therefore, it has a significant effect on Iran's carbon dioxide emissions. In this article, a residential building in Tehran has been studied with the aim of investigating the effect of applying a thermal insulation layer to the external walls of the building using Design Builder software. Initially, a 5-story residential building was modeled in Design Builder software, considering all specifications for different elements of the external walls. Ten different scenarios were defined, including nine different types of thermal insulation and one case without insulation. The necessary outputs from the software, such as hidden carbon content and equivalent hidden carbon, as well as the carbon emissions during the building’s operational phase for each scenario, were analyzed. The results showed that the lowest embodied carbon content was associated with the use of glass wool insulation, while the lowest carbon emissions during the operational phase were related to the use of polyurethane foam. In terms of total lifecycle emissions and embodied carbon, the optimal insulation layer is polyurethane foam, which releases a total of 1178 tons of carbon into the environment over a 30-year building lifespan.

Keywords

Carbon emission

Design Builder

Thermal insulation

Faç

ade

Residential building

Embodied carbon

Subjects

Structural Materials

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