Evaluation of thermal admittance of compressed earth bricks C.E.B configurations for school buildings in hot-dry climate region of north-western Nigeria.

Abstract

Permeation of heat into the school building enclosure through external walls components of the building resulting into the numerous consequences which causes unhealthy indoor living conditions for teaching and learning activities, which has a negative impacts on the students general academic performance and their productivity, the study carried out a fieldwork experimentation where four experimental models (chambers) were built using four dissimilar compressed earth (C.E.B) configurations; compressed earth horizontal hollow brick (C.E.H.H.B), compressed earth vertical hollow brick (C.E.V.H.B), compressed earth cellular brick (C.E.C.B), and compressed earth solid brick (C.E.S.B) respectively, data were collected from fieldwork experimental chambers using two distinct wall surface temperature measuring devices; an onset UX120-M600 4-channel analogue data logger and Testo 835 Infrared thermometer which were utilized to measure the interior wall surface temperature facing the west direction of each experimental chamber to determine the rate of thermal admittance of the entire chambers built with distinct C.E.B configurations, the extracted data using surface temperature measuring instrument were analyzed using the spss software package for identification of the C.E.B configurations with the least thermal permeation from outdoor environment to indoor space of the school building via external walls of the building. After the statistical analysis, the study's outcome revealed that compressed earth horizontal hollow brick (C.E.H.H.B) has a minimum heat transfer rate of (34.933OC) and (35.7493OC), among other C.E.B configurations. This undoubtedly indicated the appropriate C.E.B configurations for school buildings in hot-dry climate regions of northwestern Nigeria.