Towards Understanding Aerogels’ Effect on Construction Materials: A Principal Component Analysis Approach

Abstract

This study investigates the applicability of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for distinguishing construction materials. The approach enhances data presentation, revealing distinct clusters and variable impacts on materials. This perspective provides valuable insights into concrete materials, guiding materials science and engineering practices. Our findings show the capacity of PCA to show a clear distinction between concrete and non-concrete composites. Compressive strength significantly affects certain composites, being influenced by aerogel loading. The peculiar role of aerogel density among the other factors is attributed to their possession of the smallest thermal conductivity. To address moderate total variance of PCA, segregation into concrete (C) and non-concrete (NC) categories is explored, offering a more robust distinction and higher clustering. Concrete materials show higher variance, emphasizing the effectiveness of the segregation approach. PCA highlights aerogel density’s influence on thermal conductivity on concrete materials. For non-concrete materials, a moderately higher variance is noted, emphasizing the critical role of aerogel-related properties (size and density). These findings underscore the importance of aerogel characteristics in shaping material behaviour.