Thermal Analysis of the Walls of a Bioclimatic Building in Earth: Measurement of Temperatures of External and Internal Surfaces

The thermal performance of a building depends on the materials that make up its envelope. The envelope of most buildings in the Sahelian zone is composed of modern materials such as cement blocks, concrete, corrugated sheet metal, etc. These materials, for the most part, have high thermal conductivities and generate high heat transmission to the interior of buildings, resulting in discomfort. Most of these materials have high thermal conductivities, resulting in high heat transfer to the interior of buildings, discomfort and increased cooling load requirements. The need to find solutions to reduce cooling loads is obvious. This study is a continuation of the experimental study of the thermal performance of an earthen building with a domed roof. The aim is to study the thermal performance of the building's walls and domed roof. To do so, we analyzed the temperatures of the external and internal surfaces of the walls and of a few points of the dome roof obtained through a measurement campaign during a warm period. The results show that the building's domed roof has an average damping of 14.45°C, an average thermal phase shift of 6 h 23 min and a damping factor of 12.15%. The walls have an average damping of 7.54°C, an average thermal phase shift of 7 h 01 min and a damping factor of 9.7%. These values show that the building's walls and roof have good thermal inertia and confirm that earth-based materials are better than materials such as breeze-block. Buildings constructed with earthen materials therefore make a significant contribution to reducing inward heat transfer in the Sahelian zone. Keywords: Thermal performance ; thermal conductivity; average damping ; thermal phase shift ; damping factor ; thermal inertia.