Construction

and Building

Construction and Building Materials 20 (2006) 435440

MATERIALS
www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

The use of tu stone cladding in buildings for energy conservation

a,* b
H. Tarik Ozkahraman , Ali Bolatturk
a
Department of Mining Engineering, Engineering Faculty, University of Suleyman Demirel, Isparta 32260, Turkey
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Engineering Faculty, University of Suleyman Demirel, Isparta 32260, Turkey

Received 28 September 2004; received in revised form 6 January 2005; accepted 31 January 2005
Available online 18 April 2005

Abstract

Heating the houses in cold climates requires large quantities of heat energy to be spent. The building sector consumes more en-
ergy in the form of heat than other sectors. Therefore, considerable energy savings can be obtained by using natural rocks with low
thermal conductivity in insulating the buildings. In this study, the amount of energy conserved by using porous tu stone in external
walls of buildings is calculated. It was shown that considerable energy savings can be achieved by using tu stone for facing build-
ings in cold climate zones such as Isparta region. The cost of installing tu stone panels for facing buildings will be paid back in four
years by savings in heat energy.
 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Tu stone; Optimum insulation thickness; Thermal conductivity; Pay-back time; Energy conservation

1. Introduction resources of their own. It is even more important if

Tu stones that are used in masonry are welded tus
and the masonry walls made of tu stone is more dura-
ble than concrete and brick walls. They outcrop around
Isparta as a product of Golcuk volcanic activity. The
welded tus in porphiritic texture and phenocrysts con-
sists of sanidine, oligoclase, pyroxene, anphibole and
opaque minerals [1]. Tu stone is very porous in nature
so its density, thermal conductivity value and P-wave
velocity is lower than other rocks as seen in Table 1.
Therefore, tu stone is a good heat insulator due to its
porous structure. Clauser and Huenges [2], states ther-
mal conductivity value of tu stone changing from 0.2
to 0.4 W/mK according to whether its pores are partially
or fully lled by water or air.
Energy saving by energy conservation is very impor-
tant for under developed countries with limited energy
* oor as seen in Table 2 [5]. Its clear that great amounts
Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 246 2371199; fax: +90 246
2370859.
E-mail address: tarik@mmf.sdu.edu.tr (H. Tarik Ozkahraman).
the energy is imported with foreign currency. Building
insulation will reduce fuel consumption for heating the
building and energy requirements. Turkey is one of the
countries that imports its energy. After the energy crises
beginning 1973, energy conservation in buildings be-
came important and should be taken into consideration.
Energy conservation in buildings by adding insula-
tion, not only reduces heat energy requirement but also
reduces its polluting products such as CO2, CO, SO2 and
the dust particles.
The importance of heat insulation can readily be
understood by examining Table 2. According to data
gathered for Turkey in 1999, industry and household
space heating was the highest among the sectoral distri-
bution as seen in Table 2 [3]. Also the highest energy
consumption occurred in heating the buildings and it
was constituted 40% of the household energy consump-
tion [4]. In general heat losses occurs in buildings mainly
from external walls and roof and to a lesser extend from
of savings from heat energy can be achieved by applying
heat insulation in buildings.

0950-0618/$ - see front matter  2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2005.01.064
436 H. Tarik Ozkahraman, A. Bolatturk / Construction and Building Materials 20 (2006) 435440

Nomenclature

CA annual cost of heating the building, $/m2 year Ri air lm thermal resistance, inside, m2 K/W
Cf fuel cost, $/kg Ro air lm thermal resistance, outside, m2 K/W
Ci the cost of tu stone (insulating material), Rw thermal resistance of the wall, m2 K/W
$/m3 Rcw thermal resistance of concrete wall,
Cins the cost of tu stone cladding, $/m2 m2 K/W
Cs the present value of total savings over N years Rtw thermal resistance of tu stone wall, m2 K/W
with interest rate i, $/m2 Rip Thermal resistances of inside plaster, m2 K/W
Ct the total cost of heating the insulated build- Rop Thermal resistances of plaster outside, m2 K/
ing in present dollars, $ W
DD degree days, C days Rcon, wt Total thermal resistance of concrete wall, m2
EA required annual heating energy, J/m2 year K/W
Hu Heating value of fuel, J/kg Rtu, wt Total thermal resistance of tu stone wall, m2
i interest rate K/W
k thermal conductivity of material, W/mK UCR uniform capital recovery factor
l Thickness, m x the thickness of tu stone (insulation thick-
N lifetime, years ness), m
PWF present worth factor xop the optimum insulation thickness
qA annual heat loss, MJ/m2 year gs the eciency of space heating system

Table 1
Physico-mechanical properties of tu stone
Dry density Porosity % Water absorption % P-wave velocity Uniaxial strength Thermal conductivity
(g/cm3) (dry) (by volume) (m/s) (kg/cm2) (W/mK)
Tu stone 1.40 40(3842) 28 2300 60120 0.4

Table 2
Distribution of energy consumption in various sectors and in buildings together with distribution of heat loss in buildings [35]
Industry Building sector Transportation Agriculture Others
Distribution of energy consumption in various sectors in %
37 32 23 5 3
External walls Ceilings Windows Floors Inltration
Distribution of heat loss in buildings in %
35 25 22 10 8

Heating Water heating Lighting illuminating Air conditioning ventilation Coolingfreezing Other
Distribution of energy consumption in buildings in %
Housing sector 40 17 7 7 12 17
Commercial and industrial buildings 32 5 25 22 16

There are four climate zones in Turkey and Isparta
province is in the third zone since it lies in mountainous
region. The heating season extends from beginning of
October to end of April, having 3063 degree-days. In
the calculation of degree days it is assumed that heating
will start if average temperature drops down to 15 C [6].
2. Calculation of annual heating costs of buildings
The importance of insulation is clearly explained by
Mohsen and Akash [7]. A systematic approach for opti-
mization of insulation material thickness is developed by
Hasan [8]. Al-Sallah [9] compared polystyrene and ber-
glass roof insulations and found that investing money to
improve the insulation levels in a cold climate house has
better returns than that of a warm climate. Comakli and
Yuksel, [10], conducted economic analysis of insulating
materials. Bolatturk [11] calculated polystyrene and
rock wool optimum insulation thicknesses and energy
savings for various fuels in Isparta region. Riggss [12]
formulas for economic analysis are used in the study
for present worth factor (PWF) and uniform capital
recovery factor (UCR) for initial construction of insula-
tion (as a cladding stone to the external surfaces of
buildings). Hasan [8] used present worth factor (PWF)
 H. Tarik Ozkahraman, A. Bolatturk / Construction and Building Materials 20 (2006) 435440 437

to convert annual savings to present value (dollars). Al-

Sallah [9] used uniform capital recovery factor (UCR) to
nd annual payment on investment (construction costs)
as a recovery of the initial investment cost. 3cm 30cm 2cm 3cm 30cm
Plaster Concrete External Plaster Tuff stone
2.1. Deriving the formula for annual cost of heating, CA Plaster

(a) (b)
Only heat losses from the walls are considered here
for comparison.
Heat loss from a unit surface area of external wall or
ceiling given by the following equation:
q U DT ; 1 3cm 30cm 15.5cm
Plaster Concrete Optimum Tuff stone
where U is the total heat transfer coecient (or the wall Cladding Thickness
conductance). The following equation gives the annual
(c)
heat loss from a unit surface area qA, where DD, is
the degree-days. Fig. 1. (a) Concrete wall. (b) Tu stone wall. (c) Tu stone plate facing
(cladding) in optimum thickness of xop = 15.5 cm.
qA 86400 DDU ; 2
EA is the annual total heat energy, supplied by com-
bustion of fuels to compensate this heat loss (qA). Where Annual cost of heating the building, CA is calculated
gs is the eciency of the heating system. using fuel cost Cf, and caloric value of the fuel Hu
EA 86400U DD=gs . 3 86400 DD U C f
CA . 5
The following equation gives the wall conductance U H u gs
for a typical wall:
PWF is used to determine the present value of the
1 lifetime savings as given in the following equation where
U ; 4
Ri Rw Ro N is the life in years, i is the interest rate [9]:
where Ri and Ro are the inside and outside air lm thermal 1 iN  1
resistance; Rw is thermal resistance of the wall. Rw takes PWF . 6
values according to the structural components of the wall. i1 iN
Concrete wall thermal resistance is; CA is the annual heating costs over N years converted to
Rw Rip Rcw Rop . present dollars.
Uniform capital recovery (UCR) factor is used as a
And thermal resistance of tu stone wall is; recovery of the initial investment (construction cost of
Rw Rip Rtw ; tu stone plates to the external wall);
N
where Rcw is thermal resistance of concrete wall, Rtw is i1 i
UCR . 7
thermal resistance of tu stone wall. Rip and Rop are the N
1 i  1
inside plaster and outside plaster thermal resistances,
respectively. Ci is the uniform yearly capital recovery factor of ori-
Two analyses are conducted in the study: ginal investment.

 Two walls are compared for heat savings with each
other, one is concrete and the other tu stone wall.
The structures of concrete wall and tu stone wall
are seen in Fig. 1(a) and (b). In both walls concrete
and tu stone thicknesses were 30 cm. Also 3-cm
plaster layer is used at the inside surface and 2-cm
plaster at the outside surface of the concrete wall,
where as for tu stone wall only 3-cm plaster layer
is used at the inside surface and no outside layer (out-
side plaster layer is not required due to the pleasant
appearance of the tu stone itself).
 Determination of optimum tu stone plate thickness
for outside wall cladding is as shown in Fig. 1(c).
2.2. Deriving the formula for optimum tu stone plate
thickness
Eq. (5) is rewritten in Eq. (8), which gives the annual
heating load, where gs is the eciency of the heating sys-
tem. Eq. (8) is used when applying insulation such as tu
stone plates for cladding. In the formula x is the insula-
tion thickness and k is the thermal conductance of insu-
lation material. Rwt is the thermal resistance of the wall
excluding insulation resistance.
86400 DD
EA
. 8
Rwt kx gs
438 H. Tarik Ozkahraman, A. Bolatturk / Construction and Building Materials 20 (2006) 435440

The annual heating cost per unit area, CA is given by 2.3.1. Calculation of total thermal resistance of concrete
the following equation where the fuel cost is Cf in $/kg, wall, Rcon, wt
and its heating value is Hu in J/kg.
Rw Rip Rcw Rop ; 14
86400 DDC f
CA
. 9
Rwt kx H u gs lplaster;inside lconcrete lplaster;external
Rw ; 15
k plaster k concrete k plaster
The cost of investment by construction of the insula-
tion is given by the following equation, where Cins is the
0.03 0.3 0.02 m2 K
cost of insulation in $/m2, Rw 0.2141 ; 16
1.2 1.74 1.2 W
C ins C i x; 10
3 Rcon;wt Ri Rw Ro 0.13 0.214 0.04
where, Ci is the cost of insulation in $/m and x is the
insulation thickness in m. m2 K
0.384 ; 17
Therefore, the following equation gives the total cost W
of heating the insulated building in present dollars, where Ri and Ro are the inside and outside air lm ther-
C t C A PWF C i x 11 mal resistance and their values are taken as [4]; Ri is the
air lm thermal resistance, inside, 0.13 (m2 K/W); Ro is
or
the air lm thermal resistance, outside, 0.04 (m2 K/W).
86400 DDC f PWF
Ct
C i x. 12
Rwt kx H u gs 2.3.2. Calculation of total thermal resistance of tu stone
The optimum insulation thickness is obtained by mini- wall, Rtu, wt
mizing the total heating cost Ct, Hence, the derivative Rw Rip Rtw ; 18
of Ct with respect to x is taken and set equal to zero
from which the optimum insulation thickness xop is ob- lplaster ltuff stone
tained as follows: Rw ; 19
k plaster k tuff stone
 1=2
DD C f PWFk
xop 293.94  kRwt . 13 0.03 0.3 m2 K
H u C i gs Rw 0.775 ; 20
1.2 0.4 W
From the above equation it can be seen that optimum
insulation thickness depends on fuel cost, insulation Rtuff;wt Ri Rw Ro 0.13 0.775 0.04
cost, PWF factor and insulation material properties. m2 K
The parameters used in the calculations and their corre- 0.945 . 21
W
sponding values given in Table 3.

2.3. Calculation of thermal resistances of concrete and tu

stone walls 3. The results

The total thermal resistance of concrete and tu stone Two cost analysis are conducted in the study as de-
walls are calculated below according to the standards of scribed below.
TS 825 [13].
3.1. Comparison of heating costs of concrete wall versus
Table 3
The parameters used in calculations tu stone wall (Case 1)
Parameters Value
Annual heating costs are calculated from Eq. (5).
Degree-days (C days) 3063 Isparta
For concrete wall, annual heating cost CA is 3.685 $/
Fuel Coal
Caloric value (Hu ) 33.480 106 J/kg m2, for tu stone wall annual heating cost CA is 1.49 $/
The eciency of burning system 70% m2; annual savings from heat costs is 2.19 $/m2. The
Cost of fuel 0.125 $/kg present worth of the savings over 10 years is
Thermal conductivity of concrete 1.74 W/mK Cs = 14.71 $/m2 (24.7310.02).
Thermal conductivity of tu stone 0.40 W/mK Therefore, by using tu stone instead of concrete,
Cost of tu stone 40 $/m3 60% energy saving is resulted. Fig. 2 shows heating costs
Concrete wall resistance Rcon, wt = 0.384 m2 K/W for both walls increase with degree-days linearly. In
Tu stone wall resistance Rtu, wt = 0.945 m2 K/W colder climate zones heating costs increase proportion-
Interest rate 8% ally by degree-days. But the rate of increase in tu stone
PWF 6.71
wall is less than concrete wall. In Fig. 3 the savings
 H. Tarik Ozkahraman, A. Bolatturk / Construction and Building Materials 20 (2006) 435440 439

40 30
Life cycle heating cost (10 years) [$/m2]

Total cost

]
2
35 2

Life cycle cost cost (10 years) [$/m

Rcon;wt=0,383 [m K/W] 25 Heating cost
2
Rtuff;wt=0,945 [m K/W] Insulation cost
30
20
25
concrete wall
20 15
tuffstone wall

15 10

10
5
5
0
0 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4
2000 2400 2800 3200 3600 4000
Insulation thickness x [m]
Degree Days, DD
Fig. 4. The graphical determination of optimum thickness of insula-
Fig. 2. The change in life cycle heating cost of concrete and tu stone
tion (tu stone cladding).
walls with degree-days.

The cladding thickness x value that makes the total cost

25
curve minimum is the optimum thickness xop value.
22.5 2 The present value of total savings over 10 years with
Rcon;wt=0,383 [m K/W]
2
interest rate 8% is Cs = 24.73  18.49 = 6.24 $/m2.
20 Rtuff;wt=0,945 [m K/W]
Savings (10 years), C S [$/m ]
2

17.5 3.3. Calculation of pay-back period

15 The cost of insulation;

Cins = 40 0.1546 m = 6.184 $/m2, since the cost of
12.5
tu stone is Ci = 40$/m3.
10 The annual savings is As = 3.6855  1.8340 =
1.8515 $/m2.
7.5 Simple pay-back period is 6.184/1.8515 = 3.34 years,
5 (this value does not take interest rate into account). If
2000 2400 2800 3200 3600 4000 interest rate is 8%, then pay-back period should be cal-
Degree Days,DD culated as follows:
N
Fig. 3. The increase in savings with degree-days. 6.184 1 i  1
N . 22
1.8515 i1 i
versus degree-days curve is seen. It is obvious that the If i = 8%, then N = 4 years. This means that the cost of
savings increase linearly with degree days and savings construction of tu stone plating will be paid back in 4
is directly proportional to degree days indicating in cold years by savings in heat energy.
weather (higher degree-day values) more savings can be
made by making tu stone wall.
4. Conclusions
3.2. Calculation of optimum thickness of tu stone
cladding on concrete wall An energy saving of 60% results by making tu stone
wall instead of concrete wall. Cladding the external walls
Tu stone cladding on the concrete wall facing is seen not only saves heat energy but also gives a pleasant
in Fig. 1(c). The optimum thickness is found to be appearance to buildings as well as thermal comfort.
15.46 cm from Eq. (13). Also, the optimum thickness va- The building sector consumes more energy in the form
lue can be observed from the graph in Fig. 4. Heating of heat than other sectors. Therefore, considerable en-
cost is inversely proportional to thickness of tu stone ergy savings can be obtained by using tu stone in build-
plate, in contrast to the insulation cost curve, which in- ings. This is due to tu stone having a low thermal
creases linearly with plate thickness. When these two conductivity value (0.4 W/m K) because of its high
curves added together a total cost curve is obtained. porosity (40%).
440 H. Tarik Ozkahraman, A. Bolatturk / Construction and Building Materials 20 (2006) 435440
As insulation thickness increases the heating load de-
creases, and hence cost of fuel reduces. On the other
hand, the insulation cost increases as its thickness in-
creases. The total cost of fuel and insulation material
will give a minimum at optimum insulation thickness.
Therefore, it is important to determine optimum insula-
tion thickness as explained in [14,15]. In this study, the
optimum insulation thickness of tu stone is calculated
and found to be 15 cm. Hasan [8] has computed the
optimum insulation thickness for a composite wall made
of stone (0.07-cm thick), concrete (0.20-cm thick) and
plaster (0.03-cm thick) by using two types of insulation,
rock wool and polystyrene. He determined the optimum
insulation thicknesses as 0.067 m for polystyrene and
0.065 m for rock wool, respectively (PWF = 9.05). This
means that savings up to 21 $/m2 of wall area over life-
time of 10 years is possible for rock wool and polysty-
rene insulation when life cycle savings of the insulated
buildings are computed. Therefore, its recommended
to determine lifetime accumulated savings, since it can
be high compared to the initial construction costs of
insulation as shown in this study.
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engel YA. Heat transfer: a practical approach. McGraw Hill;
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