Designing Low-Cost Insulating Panels to Enhance Buildings’ Thermal Performance

The objective of this paper is to picture an applicable idea of adopting a new passive system for building’s envelope enhancement. It is about designing and inspecting the impact of integrating an external panel to the façades of already existing buildings, on the effect of the thermal performance and indoor conditions of specific residential buildings in Africa and Morocco. The Low-Cost Panels (LCP) are implemented taking into consideration several parameters and standards to be applicable for most climatic conditions mainly the hot semi-arid which the abundant in Africa and Morocco. In this vision, decided combinations of possible high thermal insulation performance are studied by means of dynamic modeling using TRNSYS software. The credentials of the best materials or mixtures of filling are made on the basis of several aspects but most importantly the cost and the availability in the targeted contexts of the housing. The calculations from TRNSYS shows a relevant reduction that can goes beyond 43% on the annual thermal load. This technique is shown to be the best compared to some chosen regular thermal insulation available in the local context of Benguerir city.