Certificate

G.S.MANDAL’S
MARATHAWADA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Est.: 1984
AURANGABAD
AFFILIATED TO
B.A.M.U.

This is to certify that Ms. Banafsha Quadri has successfully completed the submission on
Sustainable Architecture as the Elective - a part of academic curriculum of Fifth year
Architecture 2008 – 09 of the five-year course of architecture.

H.O.D Subject teacher

Ar. Sanjay Mhaske Ar. Madhura Yadav
 Sustainable elective

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have helped me
for the completion of this report. Firstly, I would like to thank Ar. Madhura
Yadav for guiding and helping me throughout the session for this report.

This seminar is dedicated to my family and friends. I would like to thank my father Mr. Imtiaz
Quadri, my mother Mrs. Lubna Quadri and my brother Fahad Quadri for helping me for this
report.

This seminar is dedicated to the dept. of architecture and all my co-mates. This seminar is a part
of the academic curriculum for the tenth semester of the five-year degree course of architecture.
All the information in this seminar has been compiled from various books and websites and is
true to my knowledge.

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SOLAR PASSIVE TECHNIQUE

TROMBE WALL

Contents :

• Introduction to passive solar techniques

• What is Trombe wall?
• How does it affect ecologically and economically towards sustainability?
• Constructional detail
• How it can be used as aesthetic element?
• Examples

PASSIVE SOLAR TECHNIQUES

Also called climatic design, a design approach that uses structural elements of a
building to heat and cool a building without the use of mechanical equipment. Passive
solar design calls for careful consideration of factors such as local climate and solar
energy resources, building orientation, and landscape features.

The principal elements of passive solar design include proper building orientation,
proper window sizing and placement and design of roof overhangs to reduce summer
heat gain and ensure winter heat gain, and proper sizing of thermal energy storage
mass (for example, masonry tiles).
The heat is distributed primarily by natural convection and radiation, though fans can
also be used to circulate room air or ensure proper ventilation.

Every passive solar building includes five distinct design elements:

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1. An aperture or collector – the large glass area through which sunlight enters the
building.
2. An absorber – the dark surface of the storage element that absorbs the solar
heat.
3. A thermal mass– the material that stores the absorbed heat. This can be
masonry materials such as concrete, stone, and brick; or a water tank.
4. A distribution method – the natural tendency of heat to move from warmer
materials to cooler ones (through conduction, convection, and radiation) until
there is no longer a temperature difference between the two. In some buildings,
this strictly passive distribution method is augmented with fans, ducts, and
blowers to circulate the heat.
5. A control mechanism – to regulate the amount of sunlight entering the aperture.
This can be as simple as roof overhang designed to allow more sunlight to
enter in the winter, less in the summer.

Fig: Elements of passive solar design, shown in a direct gain application

There are three basic passive solar designs for heat regulation, each of which
incorporates these five elements in different ways :

1. Direct gain
This the simplest passive design technique. In direct gain, sunlight enters a
building through an opening – usually south-facing windows. It then strikes the
building's thermal mass – usually dark-colored masonry floors and/or walls in
the interior space that absorb and store the solar heat. At night, as the building
cools, heat stored in the floors and walls warms the rooms.
2. Sunspace (isolated gain)
This design uses a separate solar room (solarium) to store solar heat. A
sunspace can be built as part of a new building or as an addition to an existing
one. Sunspaces also require a thermal mass to store heat. This stored heat is
distributed throughout the building via ceiling and floor-level vents, windows,
and doors, sometimes with the addition of fans.
3. Indirect gain (Trombe wall)
In the trombe wall design, a dark-colored wall is placed between a
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building's south-facing windows and its living or working space. The wall
absorbs solar heat through radiation, stores it, and then releases it into the
building when the indoor temperature falls below that of the wall's surface.

Fig: Passive solar design using a Trombe wall

Introduction:

Since ancient times, people have used thick walls of adobe or stone to trap the sun's heat
during the day and release it slowly and evenly at night to heat their buildings. Today's
low-energy buildings often improve on this ancient technique by incorporating a thermal
storage and delivery system called a Trombe wall. Named after French inventor Felix
Trombe in the late 1950s, the Trombe wall continues to serve as an effective feature of
passive solar design.
Trombe walls have been integrated into the envelope of a recently completed Visitor
Center at Zion National Park and a site entrance building (SEB) at the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL’s) National Wind Technology Center. The High
Performance Building Initiative (HPBi) at NREL helped to design these commercial
buildings to minimize energy consumption, using Trombe walls as an integral part of
their design.

Trombe Wall Design and Construction:

A typical unvented Trombe wall consists of a 4- to 16-in (10- to 41-cm)-thick, southfacing

masonry wall with a dark, heat-absorbing material on the exterior surface and
faced with a single or double layer of glass. The glass is placed from ¾ to 2 in. (2 to 5
cm) from the masonry wall to create a small airspace. Heat from sunlight passing
through the glass is absorbed by the dark surface, stored in the wall, and conducted
slowly inward through the masonry. High transmission glass maximizes solar gains to
the masonry wall. As an architectural detail, patterned glass can limit the exterior
visibility of the dark concrete wall without sacrificing transmissivity.
Applying a selective surface to a Trombe wall improves its performance by reducing the
amount of infrared energy radiated back through the glass. The selective surface consists
of a sheet of metal foil glued to the outside surface of the wall. It absorbs almost all the
radiation in the visible portion of the solar spectrum and emits very little in the infrared
range. High absorbency turns the light into heat at the wall's surface, and low emittance
prevents the heat from radiating back towards the glass.
For an 8-in-thick (20-cm) Trombe wall, heat will take about 8 to 10 hours to reach the
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interior of the building. This means that rooms receive slow, even heating for many
hours after the sun sets, greatly reducing the need for conventional heating. Rooms
heated by a Trombe wall often feel more comfortable than those heated by forced air
because of the large warm surface providing radiant comfort.
Architects can use Trombe walls in conjunction with windows, eaves, and other building
design elements to balance solar heat delivery. Strategically placed windows allow the
sun's heat and light to enter a building during the day to help heat the building with direct
solar gains. At the same time, the Trombe wall absorbs and stores heat for evening use.
Properly sized roof overhangs shade the Trombe wall during the summer when the sun is
high in the sky. Shading the Trombe wall can prevent the wall from getting hot during
the time of the year when the heat is not needed.
.
Figure 1 shows the Trombe wall locations in the NREL SEB (a), and the Zion Visitor
Center (b).

Figure 1. a) NREL SEB, b) Zion Visitor Center

The National Park Service applied a whole-building design process to create a Visitor
Center at Zion National Park that performs more than 70% better than a comparable
code-compliant building at no additional construction cost (Torcellini 2004). Trombe
walls were one of the many strategies included in that process and design.
The Visitor Center Trombe wall design details are shown in the cross section in Figure 2.
The 6-ft-high (1.8-m) Trombe wall (740-ft2 total area (68.7-m2) is located on the entire
length of south-facing walls of the Visitor Center. The wall is 44% of the total south
facing wall area. The Trombe wall is 8-in (20-cm) grout-filled concrete masonry units
(CMU) with an R-value of 2.5 hr·ft2·°F/Btu (0.4 K·m2/W). The other walls are 6-in
(15-cm) framed walls with an R-value of R-16 hr·ft2·°F/Btu (2.8 K·m2/W). The Trombe
During the construction process, the filling of the CMU wall was monitored to ensure the
concrete block cores were completely filled, which provides a consistent conductivity
through the wall. The placement of the footing insulation was also verified during the
construction process to ensure proper installation. The location of this insulation is
critical, as Trombe wall performance can be diminished due to three-dimensional heat
transfer to the ground. By thermally decoupling the footings from the ground with
insulation, unnecessary heat loss is avoided and more heat from the Trombe wall is
supplied to the building.

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NREL’s Wind Site, located approximately twelve miles north of Golden, Colorado,
constructed a small building at the site entrance. NREL staff designed an energyefficient
SEB that would eventually be powered completely by its onboard photovoltaic
(PV) array and two wind turbines. Although small, the building is representative of many
guard facilities, remote restrooms, and outposts.
A Trombe wall was an integral part of the heating system. This Trombe wall has a single
piece of high transmittance patterned glass installed on a thermally broken storefront
system in front of a 4-in-thick (10-cm) concrete wall with a selective surface. The other
walls are 4-in-solid (10-cm) tilt-up concrete walls with an EIFS (exterior insulating
finishing system). The 5-in (13-cm) exterior foam has an R-value of 25 hr·ft2·°F/Btu
(4.4 K·m2/W). The total area of the Trombe wall is 44 ft2 (4.1 m2), or about 34% of the
total south-facing wall. The roof overhang shades the Trombe wall for most of the
summer. The interior surface is painted concrete.

Trombe Wall Energy Performance

The energy performance of the Zion Visitor Center was monitored and analyzed over a
two-year period. The analysis consisted of measured electrical end uses, Trombe wall
temperature profiles, and thermographic pictures to determine the performance of this
Trombe wall (Torcellini, 2004). Similar measurements were taken at the SEB over a
one-year period.
Figure 3 shows the thermal distribution of the Zion Trombe wall at 8:30 p.m. on
December 16, 2000. The interior surface temperature is generally homogeneous, ranging
from 90-96ºF (32-36ºC). The wall temperature typically peaks between 8-9 p.m. The
reduced wall temperature at the far right section of Trombe wall is due to shading. The
building shades a portion of the Trombe wall in the afternoon, resulting in reduced
interior temperatures.

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EXAMPLES:
1. Himachal pradesh state co-operative bank

2. The Blue Ridge Parkway Destination Center, Asheville, N.C

Location: Asheville, N.C.
Size: Two stories, 12,000 square feet
Completed: January 2008
Certification: targeting LEED Gold

EXAMPLE 1:
Himachal pradesh state co-operative bank
Location : Shimla, Himachal Pradesh
Climate : Cold and Cloudy

Brief description of building :

• This building is a ground and three-storeyed structure with its longer axis facing
• the east-west direction.
• The smaller northern wall faces the prevailing winter winds from the north-eastern
direction. The building shares a common east wall with an adjoining structure. Its west
façade overlooks a small street from which the building draws its main requirements of
ventilation and daylighting.
• A plan and section of the building showingthe various passive techniques incorporated
is given.

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EXAMPLE 2

• The Blue Ridge Parkway Destination Center blends state-of-the-art computational

analysis with state-of-the-shelf passive solar design.
• The Center’s mission is to orient visitors to the history, culture and resources of the
Parkway and surrounding region, while demonstrating high-performance, ecological
design.
• Nestled into a hill, the building evokes a “tree-house-like” atmosphere that allows
visitors to experience the majestic vistas and surrounding woodlands for which the
Parkway is known.
• The facility’s optimized passive solar design, along with a mix of other strategies, is
projected to reduce energy use by 75 percent.

Climatic Response :
• Natural ventilation reduces the building’s cooling load in the swing seasons.
• The design was developed in direct response to regional climatic conditions.
• Climate analysis and preliminary energy modeling were part of the schematic design
process.
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• The summer design temperature in Asheville is 87 degrees Fahrenheit (F), and the
winter design temperature is 19 F. There are 4,512 heating degree days and 748 cooling
degree days, with fairly strong solar radiation in winter. In this heating-dominated
climate, the use of passive solar provided an opportunity for significant energy savings.
A mild cooling season with low nighttime temperatures allows for natural ventilation
and passive nighttime cooling.
• Daylighting and energy recovery provided additional opportunities to reduce energy
use.

• To maximize solar harvesting with this orientation, the south façade was segmented to
form a saw-toothed plan, forming a row of south-facing passive solar Trombe walls .
• The Trombe walls were integrated into the design of the building, serving as structure,
exhibit areas, daylighting elements, air distribution (both for the active HVAC system
and the passive Trombe walls), and an intimate space to view the surrounding woods.
• The Trombe wall segments are interspersed with east-facing windows that provide
instantaneous heat gain on winter mornings.
• Each Trombe wall consists of eight-inch concrete providing thermal mass, with a six-
inch air-gap and a curtain wall system with insulated glazing.
• The sun heats the wall, causing heated air to rise in the air space.
• The heated air is directed into the building through vents at the top of the wall,
passively drawing cooler air into the vents at the base of the wall to be heated in turn.
• At night, dampers close off the walls, preventing reverse thermo-siphoning (i.e., cold air
from the cavity falling and entering the building at night), while heat stored in the mass
walls is released throughout the night. In summer, the walls are vented at night,
allowing for passive cooling

Conclusions:
Trombe walls have been integrated into the envelope of a recently completed Visitor
Center at Zion National Park and a SEB at NREL’s Wind site. A Trombe wall can
enable a building envelope to go from a net-loss feature to a net-gain feature. The
Trombe wall provides passive solar heating without introducing light and glare into
theses commercial spaces. Overhangs are necessary to minimize the summer gains;
however, additional means would be helpful to minimize summer cooling impacts. In
both walls, edge effects were minimized with appropriate ground insulation.
The Trombe walls in both the Visitor Center and the SEB provide significant heating to
the buildings. In the Visitor Center, 20% of the annual heating was supplied by the
Trombe wall, and the SEB afternoon and evening heating loads are typically met by the
Trombe wall. The annual net effect of the wall has to be considered when designing a
Trombe wall, as the additional cooling loads can affect the cooling system performance.

References:
1.Nayak J.K., Hazra R., Prajapati J., Manual on solar passive architecture,
Solar Energy Centre, MNES, Govt. of India, New Delhi, 1999.
2.. Lall A. B., Re-development of H. P. state co-operative bank building at mall
road - Shimla, MNES Project Report, New Delhi, 1996.
3. Representative designs of energy efficient buildings in India by ‘teri’
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MATERIAL STUDY:
CELLULAR LIGHT WEIGHT CONCRETE

Eco-friendly Materials:
Phenomenal growth in the construction industry that depends upon depletable
resources.
Production of building materials leads to irreversible environmental impacts.
Using eco-friendly materials is the best way to build a eco-friendly building.

Cellular Light Weight Concrete (CLC), based on ‘Neopor’ (Germany)

technology has been used in over 45 countries of the world over the past 30 years to
construct Over a hundred thousand houses, apartments, schools, hospitals, industrial,
commercial buildings etc.
The introduction in India of a modified version using over 25% fly ash has
made it an even more eco-friendly and cost effective version of CLC. The new product is
set to revolutionize the manner in which buildings are constructed. In the process, the
product brings quality housing closer to the masses at a faster and at a lower cost.

Manufacturing Process:

• CLC is a version of lightweight concrete that is produced like normal concrete

under ambient conditions.
• It is produced by initially making a slurry of Cement +Sand + Fly Ash
(constituting 26% - 34 % content) + water, which is further mixed with the
addition of pre-formed stable foam in an ordinary concrete mixer under ambient
conditions.
• The mixture is either poured or pumped into assembled moulds of blocks or
form-work of reinforced structural elements or poured onto flat roofs or voids for
thermal insulation or filling. The foam imparts free flowing characteristics to this
slurry due to ball bearing effect of foam bubbles enabling it to easily flow into all
corners and compact by itself in the moulds/forms without requiring any kind of
vibration or compaction.
• This Cellular Lightweight Concrete (CLC) can be produced in a wide range of
densities from 200 kg/m3 to 1,800 kg/m3 to suit different applications

Uniqueness of CLC in relation to other Light-weight Concretes:

Extensive research to develop lightweight concrete has been going-on all over
the world for many years. The versions, that have been introduced by companies like
‘Siporex’, ‘Hebel’, Yutong or “H+H” are Aerated Autoclaved Concretes, requiring a
large Factory set-up, with heavy Capital Investment (~$ 10 million) in plant and equipment
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and involvenelaborate processing.This autoclaved products have naturally to be very
expensive. The Neopor based CLC, is the first of its kind with a very simple method of
production, which can easily be adopted in pre-cast plants or even at the project-site
itself under ambient conditions. It requires only a nominal investment (<0.5% of AAC plant).
The CLC version with fly ash as one of its major constituents, is still cheaper and more
environment friendly. It is produced using Cement, Sand, fly-ash (optional), Water and
foaming compound with the help of normal Concrete/ Transit mixers, simple foaming
equipment, ordinary moulds, unskilled labour and is water mist/spray cured under
ambient conditions, just as for ordinary concrete. The foam creates millions of tiny
voids or cells in the material, hence the name cellular concrete. Other unique features
of CLC are that: -

It can be produced in a wide range of density from 400 – 1,800 kg/cubic meter.
The material of density up-to 600 kg/m3 is normally used for providing thermal
insulation. The density of 800 - 1,000kg/m3 is used for non-structural masonry,
while the density above 1,200 kg/m3 is used for structural applications, including
reinforced elements.
It may be cast in-situ into a complete structure or the walling and /or roofing
elements of a structure or
It can be made into pre-cast elements - whether reinforced or un-reinforced.

Cellular Light-weight Concrete

- A superior substitute to Bricks:-

Brick is the most extensively used building material all over the
World. To most of the people, brick symbolizes the basic unit of construction – one,
which
seems to have been present since time immemorial. But in spite of its long history the
bricks suffer from many shortcomings.
⇒ Top soil erosion:
Bricks are produced with the use of good quality agricultural topsoil. Use of CLC in
preference to bricks, will therefore prevent ruining of arable land for establishing brick
kilns and help in increasing food production for the growing millions in the World.
⇒ Power & Fuel Hungry:
Manufacturing of 0ne lakh bricks requires 25.77 Mt. of coal, while the energy required
for producing CLC is negligible. Added to this is the considerable fuel saving in
transportation of CLC as it lighter and can also be produced at the project site itself.
⇒ Smallness of size:
Smaller size of brick warrants higher mortar and labour inputs for masonry and
plastering work. A CLC block substitutes 14 bricks for an external/party wall and 7-
bricks in case of partition walls. Alternatively, the whole wall could be poured in-situ like
ordinary reinforced concrete, thus dispensing with the masonry operation altogether.
⇒ Inadequate & Seasonal Supply:
Supply of bricks is mostly not able to keep pace with the demand. Moreover
production is restricted to six months in a year, while a project can continuously
produce CLC all through the year at a regular pace to match their requirements.
⇒ One size, Different Quality:
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To top it all, even the bricks produced are not of a uniformly good quality. The quality of
CLC production can be controlled accurately at the project site, just like Concrete. The
need for an alternative building material was, therefore, being keenly felt in the
construction industry. The materials promoted so far are not cost effective. The
introduction of CLC has not only over-come shortfalls of bricks, but it is also more
versatile, apart from being eco-friendly and economical.

Advantages of CLC:

• Reduction of dead load : Unstable ground conditions or desire to add extra

floors on to existing structures, often limits application of normal dense
concrete. Under utilization of available FAR is one consequence or, the other
possibility being the introduction of lightweight concrete. Lightest possible dead
load is also highly appreciated for economy in structural design in high
earthquake prone areas.

• Material Savings: CLC uses no gravel - only sand, cement, water, fly ash and
foam. The use of cellular concrete yields substantial savings in locations where
gravel is not readily available or hard to obtain or is very costly.
In multi-story constructions, partitions, floor screeds and other non-load
bearing building elements are recommended to be made in cellular concrete,
there by substantially reducing the dead-load of the structure (and
consequently saving reinforcing steel required for foundations and the main
structural elements).

• Saving in Transportation costs: Reduced weight of materials and zero

transportation of CLC produced at project site imply lesser transportation
expenses.

• Ease of Handling Building elements of CLC can be handled manually in

largerdimensions (double sized) in comparison with those of dense concrete.
Hilly Area Construction in hilly areas will become easier with CLC as the
problematic transportation of bricks from the plains is dispensed with.

• Eco-friendly CLC is remarkably eco-friendly. It saves depletion of the top-soil,

while at the same time it can actually use fly-ash - an industrial waste- as one of
its major constituents.

The production process of CLC or it’s use does not release any harmful
effluents to ground, water or air (unlike smoke of brick kilns and ruining of top soil in
production of bricks).CLC, due to its low weight is ideal for making partitions. The
use of CLC for thispurpose will reduce the need for plywood partitions. This
consequently will result in reduction in deforestation and will benefit
environment.

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• Thermal Insulation
• Air is known to be the best insulation material available. Air voids, if smaller
than 2mm each, consequently increase thermal insulation substantially. Normal
aggregate concrete has a specific thermal conductivity (Lambda) of 2.1 W/mK,
compared to 0.405 only for 1200kg/m3 cellular concrete. To offer identical
thermal insulation as a 100 mm thick CLC wall, the equivalent thickness of
dense concrete wall would have to be more than 5 times thicker (i.e. 500 mm)
and ten times heavier.
• Fire Protection:
• Fire rating of cellular concrete is far superior to that of brickwork or dense
concrete.
• Just a 100 mm thick wall of 1200 kg/m3 CLC, offers a fire endurance (heat
• transmission) of 3 hours. Moreover, there are no dangerous fumes or spread of
fire as experienced with plywood partitions having rigid (styropore, urethane)
insulation material - often the reason for loss of life of entrapped individuals due
to toxic fumes during fires.

• Speedier Constructions: The absence of gravel coupled with the ball-bearing

effect of the foam lends cellular concrete much higher consistency. No vibration
is necessary when pouring cellular concrete into moulds/forms. It distributes
evenly and fills all voids completely ensuring uniform density all over the
material. This way full-height walls of a complete building (all internal and
external walls) can be poured in-situ in one step, thus speeding-up the
construction considerably.
• Moreover, freedom from dependence on suppliers of walling masonry materials
• like bricks or hollow blocks and ability to self regulate output of CLC material at
site to suit one’s pace of progress, can help in achieving speedier outputs.

• Universal applicability The wide range in densities and consequently their

different thermal and structural properties, make CLC equally suitable for use: -
• As reinforced load-bearing in-situ walls and roofs in Low Rise Buildings.
• Even block-work (made from pre-cast blocks produced at the project site or
obtained
• from a pre-casting plant) can also be used for load-bearing low rise
constructions.
• Non load-bearing internal or external walls in High Rise Buildings.
• Thermal Insulation of building roofs and walls & roofs of cold storage.
• Filling of depressions in Toilets, floors etc.

• Superior to other alternative materials

• CLC is superior in performance, more eco-friendly and cost effective in

comparison to other available alternative materials like Autoclaved Aerated
Concrete, Ordinary Burnt Clay bricks or Dense concrete Hollow blocks.

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Examples:

References:
• Eco-Friendly Building MaterialsScience and Technology Park, University of
PunePresentation byProf.R.K.Ambegaonkar, Former Chairman of B.O.S.Metallurgy
& Dean , Faculty of Engineering, University of Pune.
• www.greenhomebuildings.com
• www.bccssystems.com
• www.bmtpc.com

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