Energy & Buildings 164 (2018) 266–277

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Energy & Buildings

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Mitigating the Urban Heat Island effect through building envelope

modifications
Anurag Kandya a,∗, Manju Mohan b
a
Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Gandhinagar, India
b
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Mitigation techniques aiming to counterbalance the Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon deal with the
Received 30 September 2016 intensive usage of green spaces, application of highly reflective materials, materials having high thermal
Revised 15 January 2018
resistivity, decrease of the anthropogenic heat, solar control of open spaces, use of environmental heat
Accepted 18 January 2018
sinks and increase of the wind flow in the canopy layer. Though materials having high thermal resistivity
Available online 3 February 2018
do not directly mitigate the UHI effect however upon using them as constructional materials, the build-
Keywords: ings become naturally cool which reduces the anthropogenic (waste) heat from the buildings thereby
eQUEST mitigating the UHI effect. In addition to this, the reduction in the power demand would eventually lead
Building energy consumption to the reduction in the burning of coal in the thermal power plants and consequently reduces the release
Megacity Delhi of CO2 (a green house gas). Moreover, if naturally grown materials (like bamboo in the present case) are
Urban Heat Island used for construction applications, it would pave way for ‘profitable greening’ which would significantly
Bamboo
reduce the UHI effect in two ways (1) by increasing the latent heat flux through evotranspiration (2) by
Cavity wall
Rammed earth
sequestering CO2 . The embodied energy of local materials having high thermal resistivity like Rammed
Air conditioning Earth is significantly less than that of the popularly used Cement and Bricks which makes it a greener
option having relatively low carbon footprint. Cumulating these facts it can be stated that usage of ‘nat-
ural materials’ having adequate strength and high thermal resistance offers high potential for mitigating
the UHI effect.
With this background, the present study of investigating the thermal performance (in terms of en-
ergy consumption for space cooling) of composite materials like Bamcrete (bamboo-concrete compos-
ite) and natural materials like Rammed Earth along with energy intensive materials like bricks and ce-
ment was undertaken. In addition to this, the thermal performance of building envelope modifications
like (i) increasing the thickness of wall, (ii) construction of a cavity wall was also attempted. Of the
6 scenarios simulated, the use of 6 bamcrete in walls depicts the highest cooling potential (around
7.5%) when compared to the popularly used 5 brick thick wall. The present study is first of its kind
to quantitatively report the performance of ‘bamboo’–a wonder grass of India, in reducing the cooling
load of a building. The results should definitely help the green building community to take suitable ac-
tions at their ends for designing buildings having low carbon footprint and effectively mitigate the UHI
effect.
© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
With the onset of development, the whole earth is getting ur-
banized and it is expected that by the year 2050, around 70% of
the human population will be living in the urban areas [1]. Ur-
ban areas typically have high building density, reduced green cover
and various anthropogenic sources of excess heat generation. These
factors significantly alter the surface heat balance viz. radiant bal-
∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: akandya@gmail.com (A. Kandya).
ance of the urban space, the convective heat exchange between
the ground and the building, the wind flow and the evotranspi-
ration process which affect the urban microclimate especially the
air temperatures. Subsequently, the air temperature in the densely
built-up areas is higher than the air temperature of the surround-
ing areas which is commonly referred to as the ‘heat island ef-
fect’ [2–8]. Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect is considered as one of
the major problems in the 21st century posed to human beings
and around three billion people living in the urban areas across
the world are directly exposed to the problem, which will increase
significantly in the near future [9]. It is the most documented phe-

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2018.01.014
0378-7788/© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 A. Kandya, M. Mohan / Energy & Buildings 164 (2018) 266–277
nomenon of climatic change, and is associated with a very signif-
icant increase of the cooling energy demand of buildings and a
global deterioration of the local environmental conditions [10–14].
Translating the anthropogenically altered meteorological conditions
into the energy requirements for space cooling, various researchers
across the globe have estimated that the effect of the heat island
phenomenon inflates the energy requirements by around 20–100%
[15–21]. According to Akbari et al., for US cities with population
larger than 10 0,0 0 0 the peak electricity load will increase 1.5–2%
for every 1°F increase in temperature [22]. In addition to the en-
hanced energy requirements, UHIs have the potential to have the
potential to directly influence the health and welfare of urban res-
idents. Within the United States alone, an average of 10 0 0 peo-
ple die each year due to extreme heat, more than due to all other
weather events combined [23]. Moreover, higher level temperature
increases the amount of ground level ozone and smog [24–26].
Looking to the rate of urbanization across the world and its impact
on the ecological footprint of the city and on the overall environ-
mental quality, there is an urgent need to evolve a robust frame-
work of the mitigation strategies so that the development takes
a sustainable route. Mitigation techniques aiming to counterbal-
ance the heat island phenomenon deal with the intensive usage of
green spaces, application of highly reflective materials, decrease of
the anthropogenic heat, solar control of open spaces, use of envi-
ronmental heat sinks and increase of the wind flow in the canopy
layer [27–29].
Many experimental researches were specially undertaken for
evolving a cool roof technology which reduces the cooling load
thereby mitigating the heat island effect. Synnefa et al. studied the
thermal performance of 14 reflective coatings for the urban envi-
ronment and demonstrated that the use of reflective coatings can
reduce a white concrete tile’s surface temperature under hot sum-
mer conditions by 4 °C and during night time by 2 °C [30]. Kar-
lessi et al. investigated the performance of various organic ‘phase
change materials’ (PCM) when incorporated in coating for build-
ing and urban fabric and reported that coatings containing PCMs
store heat in a latent form maintaining a constant surface temper-
ature and discharge with time delay thereby maintaining a ther-
mally comfortable indoor environment and reducing the cooling
load [10]. By increasing the roof reflectance, Akbari et al. reported
cooling energy savings of 46% and peak power savings of 20%
[31] and in a separate study he documented energy savings of 31–
39 Wh/m2 /day by coating roofs with a white elastomer with a re-
flectivity of 0.70 [32].
Various researchers simulated the impact greenery on ambient
temperature and the subsequent effect on the building energy
requirement. Ashie et al. used computer modeling and reported
air temperature reduction of 0.4–1.3 °C with building cooling
energy savings of as much as 25% through planting vegetation
[33] while Tong et al. reported that temperature reduction of
1.6 °C was possible in the case of replacing urban development by
grass and shrub land [34]. It was reported in a study conducted by
Spronken–Smith et al. that parks could help control temperatures
through an evaporation of more than 300% as compared to its
surrounding [35]. Yu and Hien have used computer simulation to
report that parks and green areas could achieve 10% reduction of
cooling load [36] while Ca et al. reported that planting a 0.6 km2
park could reduce temperatures by 1.5 °C and achieve potential
savings of 40 0 0 kWh in an hour of a summer day [37].
In lines with the global efforts for evolving techniques for
reducing the power consumption for space cooling, the present
study is undertaken to investigate the thermal performance of
natural materials like Bamboo and Rammed Earth along with
options like increasing the thickness of wall and construction
of a cavity wall. It is worth mentioning that 58% of the world’s
bamboo grows in India; Mizoram, the major bamboo growing
267
state of Northeast India, produces around 37 lakh tons of bamboo
per year from the natural forest and is still able to consume only
1% of its produce in its current form of applications. Thus any
breakthrough in utilizing bamboo as a main load bearing structural
element or even for making walls in a framed structure would
pave way for profitably greening the vast wastelands (160 million
hectare of wasteland is in India alone). The building envelope
modifications were considered for modifying the walls of ‘Block
V’ building which is a 4-storied educational building located in
the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi campus and sub-
sequently the cooling loads were numerically estimated using
eQUEST for the years 2008 and 2009. The study quantifies the
performance of these modifications in terms of reduction in power
consumption for space cooling thereby mitigating the UHI effect.
It would also help the green building community to take suitable
actions at their ends for designing buildings having low carbon
footprint.
2. Data used
2.1. Building data
The present building envelope modification study has been
done for a 4-storied educational building i.e. ‘Block V’ of Indian
Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi located in the less-dense urban
canopy of megacity Delhi. Fig. 1(a) shows the Google image of the
respective less-dense urban canopy in Delhi along with the loca-
tion of the study building ‘Block V’ of IIT Delhi marked with capital
letter ‘A’ while Fig. 1(b) gives a closer view of the entire academic
area of IIT Delhi i.e. Block I, II, III, IV, V and VI and the Main build-
ing. All the 6 blocks have almost a similar constructional pattern
while the main building is different; however, the entire academic
area has similar functional usage.
The Block V building has offices of the teaching faculty, com-
puter labs, committee/seminar rooms, civil engineering labs, class
rooms, electrical rooms, rest rooms and corridor. While the of-
fices of the teaching faculty, computer labs and committee/seminar
rooms are air-conditioned having space-cooling facility, the civil
engineering labs, class rooms, electrical rooms and rest rooms are
non air-conditioned having fans for artificial ventilation. Fig. 2 (a–
h) shows the respective schematic floor plans along with the air-
conditioned and the non air-conditioned areas of the Ground Floor,
First Floor, Second Floor and Top Floor of the building. These
building footprints were processed in eQUEST software for cus-
tomized zoning i.e air-conditioned area, non air-conditioned area
and open-to-sky area. The light blue shaded area represent the air-
conditioned zones while the rest are the non air-conditioned ar-
eas. The area enclosed within the red boundary depicts the cor-
ridor while the white shaded area in the top floor is open-to-
sky. The floor-wise details of the air-conditioned and the non air-
conditioned areas of the building are described in Table 1 while
Table 2 puts forward the floor-wise fenestration details in terms
of number of doors and window as well as net opening area of
the building. The doors were of size 2.13 m × 0.91 m having wood
as the construction material while the windows were made of
glass.
2.2. Meteorological data
The site specific hourly meteorological data was available
through a weather station which was installed at the top of
the Block VI building which was adjacent to Block V building.
The hourly data for 5 meteorological parameters i.e. Dry Bulb
Temperature, Wind Speed, Wind Direction, Relative Humidity and
Occurrence of Rainfall for a period of two years (20 08–20 09)
was used. Since hourly solar radiation data was not available for
268 A. Kandya, M. Mohan / Energy & Buildings 164 (2018) 266–277

Fig. 1. (a) The less-dense urban canopy in megacity Delhi. (b) The academic area of IIT Delhi, New Delhi.

Delhi, the respective values for the typical meteorological year
(TMY) as available from the Indian Society of Heating Refriger-
ation and Air conditioning Engineering (ISHRAE) [38] were used
in the present study. This meteorological data was further pro-
cessed use a DOE weather processor (as provided at http://doe2.
com/index_wth.html) and accordingly the requisite yearly weather
files in ‘.bin format’ were prepared.
2.3. Details of the materials used
The focus of the present research is to quantify the thermal
performance (in terms of power consumption for space cooling)
of wall materials like Bamboo-concrete composite, Rammed earth
along with Bricks walls of various thicknesses. Brick is one of the
most popular materials used for wall construction and needs no
 A. Kandya, M. Mohan / Energy & Buildings 164 (2018) 266–277 269

Fig. 2. (a) Ground Floor Plan, Block V Building, IIT Delhi. (b) Conditioned and Unconditioned zones of the Ground Floor of Block V Building. (c) First Floor Plan, Block V
Building, IIT Delhi. (d) Conditioned and Unconditioned zones of the First Floor of Block V Building. (e) Second Floor Plan, Block V Building, IIT Delhi. (f) Conditioned and
Unconditioned zones of the Second Floor of Block V Building. (g) Top Floor Plan, Block V Building, IIT Delhi. (h) Conditioned and Unconditioned zones of the Top Floor of
Block V Building. (All dimensions are in meters).
270 A. Kandya, M. Mohan / Energy & Buildings 164 (2018) 266–277

Table 1
Floor-wise zone details of Block V Building of IIT Delhi.

FLOOR Total area (m2 ) Zone details (m2 )

Air-conditioned area Non air-conditioned area

Ground Floor 2140.49 794.13 1346.35

First Floor 2021.57 1180.61 840.96
Second Floor 2021.57 1275.65 745.92
Top Floor 2021.57 396.23 1625.34
TOTAL 8205.19 3646.63 4558.56

Table 2 Table 3
Floor-wise fenestration details of Block V Building of Thermal resistance of the materials used.
IIT Delhi.
No. Material Thermal resistivity [37,49,50]
Floor Number of doors
1. Bricks 1.39 m K/W
North South East West 2. Plaster finish (25.4 mm) 0.06 m2 K/W
3. Concrete 0.55 m K/W
Ground floor 0 25 0 3
4. Bamboo 4.46 m K/W
First floor 0 36 0 0
5. Rammed earth (300 mm) 0.62 m2 K/W
Second floor 0 41 0 2
Top floor 0 19 2 1

Floor Window net opening area reviewed in detail about the rammed earth construction and
(Floor to ceiling height) (%)
documented the various constructional properties including its
North South East West thermal resistance [48].
Ground floor 58 18 0 0
Table 3 puts forward the details of the thermal resistance of the
First floor 57 19 0 0
Second floor 58 18 0 0 materials used in the present study.
Top floor 57 17 0 0
3. Methodology

description. The salient aspects of Bamboo and Rammed earth are
discussed below.
(i) Bamboo: ‘Miracle plant’ or ‘an ordinary plant with extraordinary
qualities’, or ‘a Green gold’, ‘a Wonder Grass’ are the few names
earned by a grass called bamboo. Bamboo plant is unique in the
entire plant kingdom in two ways: (1) The timber of an individ-
ual culm matures in 3–5 years and (2) A mature bamboo bush
can yield culms with high quality timber in the form of func-
tionally graded light weight composite which can be harvested
all through the dry season of every year for several decades
without effecting the leaf index of the plant (bush) substan-
tially. It is a sturdy plant that can survive and thrive even
in resource constrained marginal/degraded/wastelands. Bamboo
offers multiple utilities such as food through shoots, fodder
through leaves, slats and silvers for 100s of traditional house-
hold applications including handicrafts [39].
With these high credentials on one side, when it comes down
to housing, till date bamboo is looked upon as a ‘Poor Man’s
Material’. There is not enough research done on ‘Bamboo as
a constructional material’ which could make grounds for Bam-
boo to be used as a main load bearing structural element or
even for making walls in a framed structure. In the recent past,
few experimental studies have been conducted to quantify the
structural [40–46] and thermal properties [47] of Bamboo and
bamboo-concrete composite.
(i) Rammed Earth: Rammed earth consists of gravel (minimum 5%
and maximum 10%), sand (minimum 50% and maximum 75%),
silt & clay (minimum 20% and maximum 35%) along with ce-
ment (minimum 5% and maximum 10%). Rammed earth wall
are formed by compacting damp soil between temporary forms
[48]. Though rammed earth has a long and continued history
throughout many regions of the world including North Africa,
Australia, regions of North and South America, China, India and
many more, the past few years drew the focused attention of
the scientific world. In this line, Maniatidis and Walker (2003)
Fig. 3 depicts the methodology adopted for the present study.
For the present study, after the preparing of the customized
meteorological inputs in terms of hourly weather data file for the
year 2008 and 2009 and basic building data inputs in terms of
building foot print and orientation, building materials used, HVAC
zoning, the other input parameters like the design maximum occu-
pancy, average occupancy ratio, design ventilation and infiltration,
interior lighting load, office equipments load, HVAC Temperature
set point were based on the actual observations and literature re-
view. For instance, field surveys were done for collecting the data
for the electric installations (equipments including computers, tube
lights, fans,) and HVAC temperature set points. For average occu-
pancy ratio, the time-table of the various courses (B.Tech, M.Tech
and Ph.D.) was procured from the Office of Dean of UG and PG
of IIT Delhi for the year 2008 and 2009 stating the class room,
name of the subject and number of students enrolled. From these
details, the average occupancy ratio of the students in the air-
conditioned rooms (class/laboratories) was computed.The routine
working hours of the building, which are from 9AM to 6PM, were
considered for simulating the energy consumption of the building
and the respective simulation was done for a period of 2 years
(20 08–20 09) on an hourly basis. It has been pointed out that for a
good calibration of a building energy model it is highly preferable
for using the customized or actual inputs to the building energy
model like (i) onsite weather data, (ii) actual building data hav-
ing details of geometry, orientation and envelope composition (iii)
actual lighting and plug load (iv) realistic or dynamic occupancy
details and working time period along with the behaviour of the
people for using the various electrical appliances including the air-
conditioners which would lead to reduction in the uncertainties
in simulating the power consumption thereby reducing the Mean
Bias Error (MBE) between the simulated power consumption and
actual power consumption [51–53] . From the details given under
the section ‘Data Used’, it can be seen that except the behaviour
of the people for using the various electrical appliances includ-
ing the air-conditioners, the present study confirms to most of the
requirements.
 A. Kandya, M. Mohan / Energy & Buildings 164 (2018) 266–277 271

Fig. 3. Methodology Flowchart for assessing the impact of Building Envelope. Modifications for countering the UHI effect.

For assessing the performance of the model, a comparative
analysis of the simulated hourly building energy consumption and
the actual building energy consumption for 01st May and 10th
September 2009 was done. The NMBE for the hourly power simu-
lated for 01st May and 10th September 2009 during 10.00 am to
5.00 pm was +11% and +22% respectively. The prime reason for
the over estimation of the power consumption could be the inter-
mittent use of the air conditioners by the faculties in their rooms
(as per their class schedule) and lunch breaks. By reducing the air-
conditioned area by 10% and 20%, the over estimating tendencies
of the model narrowed down to 3.5%, −4.3% for 01st May 2009
and 16.8% and 11.9% for 10th September 2009.
Tulsyan et al. and Silvana et al. also reported overestimating
tendencies by a building energy model to a tune of 10–19% and
272 A. Kandya, M. Mohan / Energy & Buildings 164 (2018) 266–277

Table 4
Different wall materials and their composite thermal resistance.

Scenarios Wall material Specifications Composite thermal resistance

(R) (m2 K/W)

Base case Brick wall 4 in. (101.6 mm) brick wall with 1 in. (25.4 mm) 0.20
plaster
Scenario-1 Brick wall 8 in. (203.2 mm) brick wall with 1 in. (25.4 mm) 0.35
plaster
Scenario-2 Brick wall 12 in. (304.8 mm) brick wall with 1 in. (25.4 mm) 0.49
plaster
Scenario-3 Brick cavity wall 8 in. (203.2 mm) brick wall with 1 in. cavity 0.63
(25.4 mm) and 1 in. (25.4 mm) plaster
Scenario-4 Rammed Earth 11.8 in. (300 mm) rammed earth with 1 in. 0.62
(25.4 mm) plaster
Scenario-5 Bamboo–concrete composite 2 in. (76.2 mm) full bamboo with 1 in. concrete 0.47
and 1 in. (25.4 mm) plaster
Scenario-6 Bamboo–concrete composite Double layer 2 in. (127 mm) full bamboo with 1 in. 0.70
concrete and 1 in. (25.4 mm) plaster

135% [54,55]. Mustafaraj et al. reports the MBE between −9.1%
to +18.7% using the first level calibration and that of −6.5% to
+11.4% after second level calibration [51] while Yin et al. reports
that the calibrated model yielded a good prediction of the Air Han-
dling Units performance in the demand response test mode with
NMBE of −3.6% [52]. In the background of the ASHRAE guide-
lines that the acceptable limit for calibration to hourly data is
−10% ≤ MBE ≤ +10%, the performance of the model in the present
study can be considered satisfactory [56].
After the satisfactory model validation, simulations were per-
formed by changing the wall materials and wall construction tech-
nique to see their impact on the power consumption for space-
cooling. In the present study, for wall construction, 6 scenarios
were created which are outlined in Table 4.
These scenarios were made either on the ease and / or its po-
tential for being used as green building measure (which reduces
power consumption for space cooling and mitigates the UHI effect)
and are briefly discussed below in Table 5 along with a schematic
sketch.
4. Results and discussion
The study puts forward the thermal performance of various
constructional schemes for walls and roofs in terms of reducing the
power consumption for space-cooling thereby mitigating the UHI
effect. Fig. 4(a–b) depicts the simulated cooling load per sq meter
of the conditioned area using various wall materials for the sum-
mer season (March, April, May and June) of year 2008 and 2009
while Fig. 5(a–b) shows respectively the simulated annual cooling
load.
As expected the base case of ½ brick thick wall having the over-
all thickness of 5 exhibited the highest power consumption for
space cooling. Here, it should be noted with caution that the re-
cent building constructions at many places across India are having
5 thick brick walls. The shortage of land and the soaring prices
of land could be one of the most prominent reasons for that. By
doubling the thickness of the wall from ½ brick to 1 brick thick
wall (scenario 1), the power consumption for summer cooling re-
duced by 4.2–4.6% while that of the annual reduced by 4.7–5.3%

Table 5
Details of the Green Building Measures for mitigating the UHI effect.

Scenario Relevance Schematic sketch

Base case Brick is the most popular construction material for making
walls. Moreover, the present day walls are usually 4 in.
thick with ½ inch thick plaster on either side. Based on
this, the base case was considered.

Scenario-1 Since for increasing the thickness of the brick wall, there is
no requirement for change in the material, construction
technique or skill of the labour, these two scenarios were
considered as they could be easily adopted

(continued on next page)

 A. Kandya, M. Mohan / Energy & Buildings 164 (2018) 266–277 273

Table 5 (continued)

Scenario Relevance Schematic sketch

Scenario-2 Same as for scenario-1

Scenario-3 Cavity wall is composite brick wall having an air cavity

sandwiched between the two layers of ½ brick wall.
Though construction of a cavity wall requires slightly
more skilled labour than to that of the normal brick
wall, it was considered because at the outset there is no
change in the material used and thus could be easily
adopted

Scenario-4 Keeping in mind that ‘brick’ is energy intensive material as

its manufacturing leads to high emissions, locally
available Rammed Earth was considered as one of the
options for making walls

Scenario-5 Taking clues from the encouraging experimental results in

terms of structural [44-50] and thermal properties [43]
of bamboo and bamboo-concrete composite, scenarios 5
was considered

Scenario-6 Same as scenario-5

274 A. Kandya, M. Mohan / Energy & Buildings 164 (2018) 266–277

Fig. 4. (a) Simulated cooling load using various wall materials for the summer season of year 2008. (b) Simulated cooling load using various wall materials for the summer
season of year 2009.

during 20 08–20 09. Interestingly, by tripling the thickness of the
wall i.e. 1½ thick wall (scenario 2), there was a marginal increase
of 0.35–0.94% in the respective reduction of the power consump-
tion in comparison to that of the scenario 1. Thus given the three
types of wall construction which require less skilled labor, 1 brick
thick wall construction turns out to be the optimal option in terms
of the power consumption for space cooling to wall thickness ratio.
The performance of 10 cavity wall having 2 half brick thick wall
separated by 1 air cavity (scenario 3) was marginally superior by
0.21–0.46% to that of scenario 2. Though cavity walls requires high
skill for construction but it definitely outshines the earlier men-
tioned wall construction scenarios along with the base case for the
power consumption for space cooling to the wall thickness ratio. In
addition to this, the benefit of better sound insulation and higher
endurance to the water seepage problem should make cavity wall
option more attractive for adoption.
The rammed earth wall (300 mm) exhibits marginal improve-
ment in the reducing the power consumption for space cooling
by 0.2 to 0.41% than that of cavity wall (scenario 3). Thus places
where space is not a constraint, Rammed Earth Wall emerges as
a good option. Moreover, looking to the fact that 90–95% of the
Rammed Earth is made of locally available materials (gravel, sand,
 A. Kandya, M. Mohan / Energy & Buildings 164 (2018) 266–277 275

Fig. 5. (a) Simulated annual cooling load using various wall materials for the year 2009. (b) Simulated annual cooling load using various wall materials for the year 2009.

silt & clay) [42], it outshines brick walls in the embodied energy
aspect and consequently the associated CO2 emissions.
The thermal performance of a hypothetical wall section of 2 in.
bamboo layer embedded between the 0.5 in. concrete layer and
0.5 in. plaster finish on both the sides (total thickness 4 in.) was
quite encouraging. By comparing the scenario 5 with the base case,
it can be seen that in spite of a relatively thinner wall section,
it resulted in 3.0–4.5% reduction of power consumption for space
cooling in the summer season and 3.4–4.9% for the annual cool-
ing load. In scenario 6, the 2 in. bamboo layer was doubled (to-
tal thickness 6 in.) and as expectedly the power consumption for
space cooling reduced. By comparing the scenario 6 with the base
case, it can be seen that the power consumption for space cool-
ing reduced by 6.7–6.8% for the summer season while the annual
cooling load reduced by 7.3–7.5%
As the cost of construction (which primarily includes the ma-
terial cost, transportation cost, labour cost, supervision cost) plays
an important role in its selection, attempt was made to collect the
respective costs of the various scenarios considered in the present
study and are presented in Fig. 6.
It should be however noted that the cost of fabrication of the
bamboo-concrete composite wall is under the research mode and
 276 A. Kandya, M. Mohan / Energy & Buildings 164 (2018) 266–277
Fig. 6. Cost of construction of the various wall types per sq ft.
it will significantly reduce once the full fledged technology is in
operation. Juxtaposing the cost of construction with the power
consumption for space cooling associated with the various wall
types along with the effective life span of the building, the fea-
sibility of the adopting the particular wall type can be calculated.
5. Conclusions
The study presents the potential of various building envelope
modifications for reducing the power consumption for space cool-
ing thereby mitigating the UHI effect for a tropical urban airshed
of India. Specifically focusing on the walls, the study relooked to
simple measures like increasing the thickness of the wall and con-
structing a cavity wall on one hand while also described the poten-
tial of earthen materials like Rammed Earth and natural materials
like Bamboo for reducing the power consumption for space cooling
thereby mitigating the UHI effect. The salient findings of the study
are as follows:
(i) The wall panels of bamboo-concrete composite (bamcrete) have
high potential for reducing the power consumption for space
cooling and thereby mitigating the UHI effect. A 6 thick wall
of bamboo concrete composite offers a reduction of around 7.5%
in the power consumption for space cooling when compared
with a 5 wall of brick. The simulation results coupled with
the previous experimental investigations done for assessing the
structural and thermal performance of bamcrete strengthens
the candidature of bamcrete to be used as a cool constructional
material for walls.
(ii) By increasing the thickness of the wall from ½ Brick to 1 Brick,
there was a reduction in the annual power consumption for
space cooling by 4.7–5.3%. However further increase of the wall
thickness by adding the brick layer didn’t significantly reduce
the power consumption.
(iii) For the 4 cases considered for the bricks as a wall material, cav-
ity wall construction offers the highest reduction in the power
consumption for space cooling.
(iv) The thermal performance of Rammed earth is quite encourag-
ing however looking to the high minimum thickness (300 mm)
required for construction, its applicability is restricted to areas
where land availability is not critical.
Acknowledgements
The present work is a part of the doctoral research work of
the first author which was pursued under the supervision of the
second author. Both the authors deeply acknowledges the metic-
ulous review done by Dr. Hashem Akbari, Professor, Civil and En-
vironmental Engineering Department, Concordia University, Mon-
treal, Canada who was the external examiner of the thesis and
whose suggestions/comments were duly incorporated in the thesis
and subsequently in the paper. The authors also acknowledge the
support extended by Dr. Sudhakar Puttagunta, Ex Associate Profes-
sor, Centre for Rural Development and Technology, IIT Delhi and
Dr. Chaaruchandra Korde, Post-doctoral Fellow at Trinity College,
Dublin for the deep insight which they gave on Bamboo as a con-
structional material. The first author expressed a deep sense of
gratitude to the financial support extended by Pandit Deendayal
Petroleum University, Gandhinagar and the organizers of the 4th
International Conference on Countermeasures to Urban Heat Island
which enabled the presentation of this paper in the respective con-
ference at National University of Singapore during 30–31 May and
01 June 2016. The authors also acknowledge the anonymous re-
viewers whose suggestions substantially increased the quality of
the research paper.
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