STUDY THE ECONOMICAL AND OPTIMUM THERMAL INSULATION THICKNESS OF BUILDING WALLS FOR ENERGY SAVING IN IRAQ

Abstract

In hot climatic countries such as Iraq, a great amount of energy is consumed in air-conditioning. Environmental effect of energy consuming and the increasing cost of energy, give special interest in order to overcome the day by day increasing energy demand. Therefore the optimum insulation thickness for building was studied in this work to reduce the energy losses in three different climatic city of Iraq; Mosul, Baghdad and Basrah. Cork was used as an insulation material in present work. The optimization based on ten years life cycle cost analysis. As a result; significant energy saving is gained; saving of 10573 IDper square meter (about 10$/m2) of the wall in Basrah can be obtained annually when the optimum insulation thickness is applied.