Developing a durable thermally insulated roof slab system using bamboo insulation panels

Traditional roofs can be effectively substituted by reinforced concrete roof slabs while gaining multiple advantages such as cyclonic resistance, possibility of future vertical extension and possibility of utilizing as an extra working space or a rooftop garden. Further, it adds a significant economic benefit from land regaining. However, the immediate space beneath the roof slab results in thermal discomfort and hence the inventions related to insulated roof slab systems have been increased recently. Although the expected thermal comfort could be achieved, most of the inventions use artificial thermal insulation materials such as polystyrene. This paper introduces a novel roof slab insulation system which uses the natural material of transversely cut bamboo layer as the thermal insulator. The proposed system minimizes the negative environmental impacts induced by the use of artificial insulation materials. The optimum insulation layer thickness is found to be 25 mm, which has acquired a 53% peak heat gain reduction with a decrement factor of 0.61 and a 3-h time lag.