STRUCTURAL PERFORMANCE OF LIGHWEIGHT GEOPOLYMER CONCRETE IN THE UAE HOT CLIMATE

Thermal lag of building materials is the ability delay heat transfer into occupied spaces. Using thermal mass appropriately can improve the building thermal performance and thus reduce cooling load, energy consumption, and carbon footprints. In the UAE climate, where daytime and nighttime temperatures range reasonably, high thermal mass is beneficial. Conventional building construction methods rely on heavy masonry with limited heat transfer delay due to the nature and the sensible heating of the material its selves. Heat transfer into occupied spaces can either be eliminated or substantially delayed by the use of lightweight geopolymer concrete (GPC). Studies in GPC have increased due to its durability and lower environmental impact. This research project investigates the performance of lightweight geopolymer concrete (GPC) cladding panels containing micropores benchmarked with a comparative set up of expanded polystyrene foam (EPS) containing GPC. Through, identifying most suitable EPS bead size, which show better bonding with the concrete compositions to achieve higher thermal energy absorption and structural stability. However, this paper focuses on the investigating the compressive strength of GPC with EPS beads. The constituents of the GPC were dune sand and industrial waste materials. Three samples produced as control samples, the remaining nine samples, 45% of the GPC volume is substituted with different sizes of expanded polystyrene foam (EPS) beads. The GPC samples tested structurally at 28 days, the compressive strength of control samples presented an average of 77.1 MPa, while samples with EPS beads showed 19.5 MPa for EPS beads size 2mm, 22.3 MPa for EPS beads size 0.5 -0.2 mm, and 27.8 MPa for EPS beads size 0.2 - 0.05 mm sample. The results of compressive strength complied with the non-loadbearing building components such as partitioning outer walls, and façade tiles.