Experimental and Numerical Study on Thermal Performance of New Cool Clay Tiles in Residential Buildings in Europe

Energy demand imputable to buildings corresponds to around 40% of the total in most of the developed countries, showing the great potential in this field to propose and implement effective strategies for energy saving and environmental sustainability. Additionally, urban areas are the most impacted zones by anthropogenic sources and they are often affected by local climate phenomena such as urban heat islands. In this view, several measures to mitigate this effects and to save energy in constructions are dealt with the implementation of cool materials for roofs and urban paving. Since the majority of cities in Europe is characterized by traditional architectures in residential buildings, the implementation of white cool coatings is not feasible and new solutions are being proposed. In particular, starting from previous works of the authors about the development and continuous monitoring of cool clay tiles, this paper deals with the thermal analysis of low-visual-impact cool tiles in single family residential buildings with varying climate conditions (i.e. latitude) in Europe, from hot subtropical semi-arid climate (Tripoli) to oceanic climate (Munich). A calibrated and validated simulation model by mean of experimental in-lab and in-field measurements, has been used for studying the thermal effect of the proposed clay tiles. The analysis shows how the clay tile has a promising potential to decrease the indoor overheating in all the climate conditions, with relatively low penalties in winter even in the coldest areas.