Investigation of the Impact of Internal Insulation on Carbon Emissions

The increasing population of cities in Iran has led to a rise in construction activities. The construction industry utilizes numerous natural resources and emits a significant amount of greenhouse gases, substantially impacting Iran's carbon dioxide emissions. This paper investigates the effect of incorporating a thermal insulation layer into the external walls of a residential building in Tehran using Design Builder software. Initially, a five-story residential building was modeled in Design Builder. Keeping all other building element specifications constant, six different scenarios were defined for the external walls: five using different types of thermal insulation and one without insulation. The software's outputs, including embodied carbon, equivalent embodied carbon, and operational carbon emissions for each scenario, were then analyzed. Results showed that the lowest embodied carbon was associated with the use of glass wool insulation, while the lowest operational carbon emissions were achieved using polyurethane foam. The optimal insulation layer in terms of payback period (the time it takes to offset the additional embodied carbon from the insulation) was also glass wool, with the added embodied carbon being offset after ۰.۵۵ years.

کلیدواژه ها:

carbon emissions ، Design Builder software ، building facade ، thermal insulation ، residential building ، embodied carbon