Experimental study on the thermal conductivity of Croatian traditional earthen architecture.

A significant number of houses made of earth are located in the Central and Eastern part of Croatia. Due to an insufficiently raised level of awareness of their importance and significance, they mainly decay. However, in Croatia, there are also ethno villages with inhabited traditional and renovated earthen houses. All the attempts to rehabilitate earthen houses are mostly carried out without the use of any design standards. In addition, national technical regulations do not contain information on the thermal properties of the earth as a material for the construction of structural and non-structural elements. Therefore, to ensure better renovation quality, raise awareness of the importance of traditional earthen houses, and prevent their deterioration, in this paper the first extensive study on thermal conductivity of earthen wall materials of traditional houses from Croatia was conducted. The experimental measurements were performed on five reproduced soil mixtures and full-scale rammed earth walls. The thermal conductivity of rammed earth samples was measured using FOX 200 apparatus. The obtained thermal conductivity values of earthen materials were compared with the thermal conductivity values of modern building materials. First test results showed better thermal performance of earthen materials than of both reinforced concrete and solid brick, having a value of thermal conductivity of around 0.32 W/(m K). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]