Numerical investigation on weakening the thermal bridge of link ribs for sintered self-insulation bricks

Abstract

Abstract The self-insulation-sintered bricks are widely employed in the walls of green buildings with the obvious advantages of the thermal insulation performance and avoiding the secondary construction of a single insulation layer. The link ribs in the sintered brick are essential components to ensure its mechanical performance, as well as directly affecting the thermal insulation performance of the brick. Therefore, the link ribs can be regarded as thermal bridges in the self-insulating bricks, where their heat transfer characteristics directly affect its insulation performance. To improve the thermal performance of self-insulation sintered bricks, the heat transfer paths of the link ribs are optimized and three optimized link ribs are proposed. The numerical simulation is employed to calculate the heat transfer process. The results show three optimized link ribs can reduce the peak and average values of surface heat flow, and thereby improve the thermal resistance of analytical units. Compared to traditional link rib, the thermal resistances were diminished by 0.84%–6.44%, 4.46%–12.73%, and 9.93%–24.69% for inclined link rib, offset link rib, and curved link rib, respectively, while they were lowered by 7.34%, 7.92%, and 13.43%, respectively, with increasing the setoff distance from 8 mm to 24 mm.