Experimental Study of Heat-Absorbent Foam Concrete Wall Based Macro-Encapsulation of Beef Tallow/Damar Gum in Building

Abstract

Generally, the foam concrete that designs as the current building wall is without considering the heat absorbent. Therefore, it is necessary to find additional materials that able to absorb the heat energy. One of them is Phase Change Material (PCM). Beef tallow is an organic material of PCM that has a high heat storage capability. Commonly, an aggregate requires in the manufacture of foam concrete as reinforcement materials. This aggregate can be changed with macro-encapsulation of PCM. This study aimed to find the ability of foam concrete based macro-encapsulation of beef tallow/damar gum in absorb heat energy that will be applied in building walls. This research was conducted experimentally with the primary materials of cement, fine sand, water, foam agent, catalyst, sika, and macro-encapsulation of beef tallow/damar gum. This foam concrete wall was made with the dimension of 80 x 80 x 10 cm and varied with a mixture of beef tallow / damar gum of 0%, 1%, 3%, and 5%, respectively. The wall concrete heater was simulated with using four lamps with the power of 200 watts. The type-K thermocouple was placed on samples at 2 points, inside and on the surface, which connected with Agilent 34970A. The results showed that the effect of adding PCM resulted in a decreasing of the temperature inside and on the surface of foam concrete walls. The amount of temperature decreases due to the addition of 5% PCM is from 51.9 °C to 44.7 °C or decreased by 13.87% inside of foam concrete walls and 75.64 °C to 51.9 °C or down to 21.87% on the surface of foam concrete walls. Overall, this foam concrete based macro-encapsulation of beef tallow/damar gum is better to use as heat-absorbent in building wall application compare with foam concrete wall without using macro-encapsulation of beef tallow/damar gum.