Avaliação da utilização de isolantes térmicos no interior das cavidades de blocos cerâmicos componentes de alvenarias de vedação externa para o clima de São Leopoldo, RS

Abstract

The need to minimize the environmental impacts caused by the most diverse human activities is more evident each year. This reality leads researchers to seek alternatives for optimizing the natural resources use such as water and energy. Energy from hydroelectric and thermoelectric sources is a widely used resource in Brazil, largely by buildings. Several discussions about increase energy efficiency in buildings therefore lead to the issue of thermal performance. As an alternative to solutions to increase the thermal performance with high cost, demand of specialized labor and increase of time to the work schedule in buildings, this research had as objective to analyze the effect of the use of thermal insulation inside the cavities of the ceramic blocks components of masonry. This is presented as an easier insulation option in relation to other techniques known in the market. The study was carried out through small scale prototype analyzes. Four experimental prototypes were constructed in São Leopoldo, RS, one of them being used as reference, representing the conventional construction form of the blocks masonry and the others with the cavities of its constituent blocks filled with three different thermal insulation types: EPS spheres, low density EPS and expanded perlite. In this research EPS was used in waste form from a company in the region. After the research, data collection and the results analysis, it was verified that the prototypes with insulation presented daily thermal oscillations minimally smaller in relation to the reference, being the lowest ones obtained by the prototype with low density EPS filling, followed by the expanded perlite and EPS spheres. Despite the fact that these diferences were very small, it is not possible to state that the use of thermal insulation inside the ceramic block cavities constituent of the masonry can bring benefits to the thermal performance in real buildings. The use of insulators in the form of residues was presented as an alternative to reduce costs with insulation.