Efficiency of a recycled composite material for building insulation

Building sustainability supports the circular economy and contributes to energy saving in the building sector and has gained a large interest worldwide. This can be done by using natural waste to produce new construction materials. In this context, this paper first studies experimentally the influence of adding wood waste (powder form, PB) on the thermophysical and mechanical properties of plasterboards and secondly assesses numerically the thermal efficiency of the produced samples. Plasterboards were made with added wood waste at 5 %, 10 % 20 and 30 % in mass. The results show that adding wood powder as aggregate in gypsum boards decreases the density, the thermal conductivity and water uptake of samples. It is also observed that the flexural and compressive strengths of the prepared composite material remain above the minimum values indicated in the regulations. Numerical analysis of the energy consumption through simulation showed the amount of wood powder and the location of the plasterboards in the building envelope have a significant impact on the effectiveness of the new composite plasterboards. The total energy savings of 29.34 kWh/m² (3.33 kWh/m² for cooling and 26.1 kWh/m² for heating) were achieved with the optimum configuration where plasterboards with 30 % PB are placed on the inner side of exterior walls and in the roof with 30 cm of air gap.