Thermal Conductivity Analysis in Brick Walls Located in the Cultural Heritage Buildings

Abstract

In cultural heritage buildings, energy efficiency is a fundamental aspect that must be taken into account when interventions are carried out to provide the building with a current use, also bearing in mind that this is one of the goals contemplated in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. For this reason, carrying out local studies to obtain precise information about the materials and construction systems used in these buildings is essential in order to ensure that future interventions are more efficient. Knowing the thermal parameters, calculation procedures, exposure conditions, moisture content and the state in whichthe materials are found can provide very valuable information to be able to determine the type of measures to propose for these interventions. On the other hand, it must be taken into account that the “ancient architectural corpus” of many Spanish regions is built with face-bricks, so studying this particular material also seems essential. Based on this background and considering that internal water causes different reactions in bricks, this paper studies the thermal behaviour of heritage buildings with façades built from face-brick masonry depending on their moisture content. For this, the behaviour of various types of bricks walls is analysed, executed with different types of bricks in different states of humidity, from dry to saturated. The results achieved allow us to propose specific solutions to the different real problems in order to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. The conclusions determine the value of the original material and will enable more effective and economically viable proposals to be established.