Thermal Monitoring and Simulation of Earthen Buildings. A Review

Since ancient times, raw earth has been used worldwide as a construction material. Today, it is well known for its good environmental properties of recyclability and low embodied energy along the production process. Earthen walls regulate the interior temperature of the buildings, providing comforta...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Carrobé, Ariadna, Rincón, Lídia, Martorell, Ingrid
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2021
Country:España
Institution:Universitat de Lleida (UdL)
Repository:Repositori Obert UdL
OAI Identifier:oai:repositori.udl.cat:10459.1/71317
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3390/en14082080
http://hdl.handle.net/10459.1/71317
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Earthen architecture
Earthen building technique
Monitoring
Simulation
Thermal comfort
Thermal inertia
Description
Summary:Since ancient times, raw earth has been used worldwide as a construction material. Today, it is well known for its good environmental properties of recyclability and low embodied energy along the production process. Earthen walls regulate the interior temperature of the buildings, providing comfortable temperatures with a very low carbon footprint. As a result of those advantages, earthen building techniques have been revived and used for contemporary architecture. The aim of this paper is to review the state of the art about the thermal behaviour of earthen building, including all the monitoring and simulation analysis of real earthen constructions up to now. The paper presents the different earthen techniques known nowadays, analysing the most important thermal parameters and the thermal comfort achieved with each technique. Regardless the wide differences among the analyzed cases, the authors conclude that earth building is a suitable solution in hot and arid climates, since it preserves the indoor temperature within the thermal comfort limits most part of the time without any active system.