Improving the Building Energy Efficiency and Thermal Comfort through the Design of Walls in Compressed Earth Blocks of Agricultural and Biopolymer Residues Masonry

Buildings should be assessed in their energy behaviour to identify the most suitable construction material for the climatic context. This paper studies the influence of construction materials for the wall in housing hygrothermal behavior and energy efficiency. Three types of construction material for the wall, which are CSEB of fonio straw and Shea butter cakes, cement blocks, and cut laterite blocks were selected and the building design was modeled in the DesignBuilder interface. The thermal comfort and total amount of energy required for building cooling were calculated using dynamic modelling using EnergyPlus software. The simulation was run according to the meteorological parameters of Ouagadougou city and we noted that the housing thermal behaviour is impacted by the wall in earth-based. The results show that the number of warm thermal discomfort hours and the cooling energy loads are respectively reduced by an average rate of 10.60% and 93.86% in housing with the wall in CSEB of fonio straw and Shea butter residue masonry, in comparison with the wall in cement or cut laterite blocks masonry. In terms of the indoor environment, the effect of this wall in earth-based makes it possible to maintain an average internal temperature and indoor operating temperature respectively at 28.64°C and 25.82°C. The average indoor temperature peaks damping is achieved to 6.54°C (i.e. 22.83%). It is thus noted that these CSEB walls are an efficient contribution to sustainable dwelling construction in a hot region.