OPTIMIZATION OF CONSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN OF EXTERNAL MASONRY WALLS IN TERMS OF MINIMIZATION OF ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND AIR POLLUTION REDUCTION

11th International Multidisciplinary Scientific GeoConference SGEM2011, www.sgem.org, SGEM2011 Conference Proceedings/ ISSN 1314-2704, June 20-25, 2011, Vol. 2, 1247-1254 pp

ABSTRACT

Building industry has an essential share in depletion of environment and, after food
production, belongs to the largest consumer of raw materials. Exploitation, production
or transportation of building materials, as well as build-up, operation or demolition of
buildings requires massive amounts of energy and results in huge amounts of
greenhouse or acidifying gasses emission, participates in depletion of ozone layer,
eutrophication processes or photochemical ozone creation.

Selection of building materials, as principal components of buildings, should by
performed on a comprehensive way with their environmental performance in mind, as
by their proper selection it is possible to contribute to minimization of energy demands
and reduction of quantity of CO2 and SO2 emissions.

In this paper, 41 different compositions of external walls with utilization of perforated
ceramic brick and various types of thermal insulation materials were analyzed from
environmental point of view. 17 external walls were designed in order to
accomplishment of requirements of thermal technical standards on maximal U-value for
Slovak conditions. Another 24 structures were designed more strictly to improve the
insulation value. Primary energy intensity, Global warming potential and Acidification
potential of various types of external walls were analyzed. Primary energy intensity
reached values between 705.72 MJ/m2 and 1180.57 MJ/m2, calculated values of Global
warming potential reached values from 35.13 to 82.97 kg CO2eq/m2 and values of
Acidification potential were between 0.1636 and 0.3322 kg SO2eq/m2. Optimization has
proven that by a proper choice of building material it is possible to reduce the negative
environmental effects. In spite of relatively small changes in materials reduction of
primary embodied energy, amount of CO2 and SO2 emissions can be reached.

Keywords: external wall, environmental assessment, optimization, primary energy, global warming