Natural disasters are affecting a significant number of people around the world. Sheltering is the first step in post-disaster activities towards the normalization of the affected people's lives. Temporary housing is being used in these cases until the construction of permanent houses are done. Disposal of temporary housing after use is leading to a significant environmental impact because most of them are filled with thermally insulative polymer foams that do not degrade in a short period. To reduce these problems this work proposes to use foams made with compostable thermoplastic polylactic acid (PLA) and degradable kenaf core as filler materials; these foams are made using CO2 as blowing agent for insulation purposes.
Foams with PLA and 5%, 10% and 15% kenaf core were tested. Different properties and their relations were examined using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermal conductivity, mechanical properties, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), x-ray μ-computed tomography (μ-CT) and building energy simulations were done using Energy Plus by NREL. The results show that mechanical properties are reduced with the introduction of kenaf core reinforcement while thermal conductivity display a noticeable improvement.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc984180 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Chitela, Yuvaraj Reddy |
| Contributors | D'Souza, Nandika Anne, 1967-, Brostow, Witold, 1934-, Shi, Sheldon |
| Publisher | University of North Texas |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | viii, 53 pages, Text |
| Rights | Public, Chitela, Yuvaraj Reddy, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved. |
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