Influence of ambient air relative humidity and temperature on thermal properties and unsteady thermal response characteristics of laterite wall houses

This paper presents the experimental investigation of the effect of ambient air humidity and temperature on thermal properties of the laterite rocks used in South-West coastal India. The experimental technique employed was transient plane source method in the saturated salt solution humidity controlled chamber. Experimental results showed an increase of thermal conductivity by 14.7% and specific heat by 9.15% with an increase in the relative humidity of ambient air in the hygroscopic range. A porous and ferruginous matrix of laterite was studied using a scanning electron microscope. The effects of relative humidity of the ambient air and temperature on the unsteady state thermal heat transfer characteristics such as transmittance, admittance, decrement factor, time lag, surface factor, surface factor time lag and heat capacity for different thicknesses of the laterite rock walls were investigated analytically. One dimensional heat flow equation under periodic convective boundary conditions was solved using matrix algebra and a computer simulation program which employs a cyclic admittance method was developed using MATLAB to compute unsteady state thermal characteristics. Results indicate that the decrement factor reduces by 8.35% and time lag increases by 2.88% with an increase in the relative humidity of ambient air compared to the dry state for the Indian standard laterite rock thickness. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.