Thermal simulation for a room with solid and one-way ribbed slab using FEM

Heat transfer has become of great importance due to the excessive energy consumption, which is greatly affected by the amount of thermal flow to the inner surfaces of the building envelope (walls and roof). In this investigation, thermal analysis of a room (slab, walls, columns and plaster) was conducted with two types of slab (solid slab and one-way-ribbed slab) using finite element model (FEM) with ABAQUS software to investigate the effect of slab type and plastering on the overall inner surface temperature of the room. Plastering with thickness of 1 cm was used from both sides of the room envelopes. Results of the FEM indicate that the ribbed slab was more thermally efficient than the solid one by about 19% and 17% for plastered and non-plastered slabs, respectively. For the overall inner temperature of the room, the room with ribbed slab was more thermally resistant than that with the solid one by approximately 38%. The effect of plaster with ribbed slab had a little increment on the thermal resistance compared to the solid one by about 0.55°C; while the effect was negligible in the case of walls. The effect of mortar on temperature increment of the wall was 0.56°C. For the room with solid slab, the inner surface temperature for one wall was almost the same for both plastered and non-plastered walls, while it was 0.73°C for the room with ribbed slab because the beams (30 cm thickness) increased the heat flow to the upper face of the wall. The heat flow from the ribbed slab to the columns was much higher than the solid one by about 3.11%. However, the room with ribbed slab was more comfortable from thermal point of view as compared to the room with solid slab.