Proceedings of 8th IOE Graduate Conference

Peer Reviewed
ISSN: 2350-8914 (Online), 2350-8906 (Print)
Year: 2020 Month: June Volume: 8

Energy Optimization Potential and Thermal Comfort: A case of

Use of Rat Trap bond in Residential Building of Terai Region
Samjhana Bhattarai a , Sanjay Uperety b , Prativa Lamsal c
a, b, c
Department of Architecture, Pulchowk Campus, IOE, TU, Nepal
Corresponding Email: a [email protected], b [email protected], c [email protected]

Abstract
Currently in Nepal, extensive use of modern material and technology is seen in construction industry. Buildings
consume large share of energy in every stage of its life-cycle. The global context shows that approximately 40
percentage of energy is consumed by building industry at various stages and large amount of such energy
is used for maintaining indoor thermal comfort. The use of construction materials, technology, orientation,
roof typology, provision of ventilation etc. plays an important role in maintaining indoor thermal comfort. The
major heat transfer takes place through walls and roof. But lack of awareness about heat transfer rates from
various parts of building, climatic context of building and thermal properties of materials and technology had
led to poor indoor thermal environment. Due to unsatisfactory thermal environment, occupants inside the
buildings try to be thermally comfortable by use of active and passive methods. The active methods such as
fans air conditioners etc. not only places stress on electrical energy, but also on global warming. Therefore,
renewed interest towards passive techniques which are more cost effective, eco-friendly and suited for the
local climate is being developed nowadays. Several building construction techniques and environment friendly
materials have been introduced. One such building technique to control heat transfer through walls in order
to enhance thermal comfort and save energy is the use of ‘Rat Trap Bond’ (RTB) masonry. The purpose
of this research is to study residential thermal comfort of the type design constructed in Ramnagar, Butwal
.Simulation tool is used for analysing thermal comfort and field study based on survey questionnaires with
house owners is used to validate the simulated data. NEA Electric bills of 21 residences were accessed to
identify electricity consumption for maintaining thermal comfort in summer and winter .Attempt is made to
compare and contrast the thermal performance of conventional brick bond wall and RTB brick wall. For this a
typical residential building constructed with solid wall on ground floor and RTB wall on first and top floor was
purposefully selected for simulation to keep all the other parameters constant.
Keywords
Construction Technology, Rat Trap Bond, indoor thermal Comfort, Energy Efficiency, Thermal Performance

1. Introduction for cooling and heating by heaters and air-conditioner

systems [2]. The selection of building materials affect
The building industry is one of the largest energy indoor thermal comfort as well as appearance of the
consuming sector accounting for larger proportion of building. Therefore, there is a need for alternative
total energy consumption than both industry and building technology which could effectively address
transportation in many developed countries . The data the issues of energy demand indoor thermal comfort
shows, in 2004 the building sector accounted for 40, along with sustainable development.
39 and 37 percentage of the total energy in USA, the
UK and the European Union respectively. in context Nepal lies in tropical region with the geographic co-
of china, building energy accounted for about 24.1 ordinates 26° to 30° latitude. Tropical climate is
percentage in 1996 of total national energy use, rising found in 60m to 1200m above the sea level with
to 27.5 percentage in 2001, and was projected to average temperature of 40°C (summer) and
increase to about 35 percentage in 2020 [1]. Large 6°C(winter) [3]. Due to these warm climatic
quantity of energy consumption in buildings is found conditions, occupants inside the buildings try to be
thermally comfortable by use of active and passive

Pages: 768 – 773

 Proceedings of 8th IOE Graduate Conference

methods. The active methods such as fans as for a conventional brick masonry wall. While in a
air-conditioners etc are not very much suitable for a conventional English bond or Flemish bond, bricks are
county like Nepal because it is at its development laid flat, in a Rat trap bond, they are placed on edge
stage. These active devices consume much electricity forming the inner and outer face of the wall, with cross
and that causes problems to the economy of the bricks bridging the two faces.
country because energy crisis has been a vital issue in
The main advantage of Rat-trap bond is reduction in
this era. Therefore in order to minimize the life cycle
the number of bricks and mortar required as compared
cost t of the buildings, indoor comfort by passive
to English/ Flemish bond because of the cavity formed
means are utmost important. So the engineers and
in the wall. The cavity also makes the wall more
architects should pay their attention on integrating
thermally efficient. This also reduces the embodied
passive concepts to the buildings in order to minimize
energy of brick masonry by saving number of bricks
the energy consumed by the building due to warm
and the cement-sand mortar [5].
humid climatic conditions [4]. While designing the
buildings to have a better thermal comfort the
designers should pay their attention to the surrounding
macro and micro climatic conditions, geometry of the 2. Literature review
site, and construction materials available. The factors The study made by Ar. Bhavana Patil and Dr. Sheeba
affecting the climate and their interaction are solar Valsson studied the thermal performance of rat trap
radiation, air temperature, atmospheric humidity, bond wall masonry with filler slab and mud block
wind and precipitation. In context of Nepal, in the with Guna tile vaulted roof for finding and comparing
name of development rapid construction works had its suitability for thermal comfort in Hyderabad, India.
been carried out with concrete and glass materials T he study shows that average indoor temperature
resulting in reduction of use of local materials from 9 am to 5 pm was 32.8°C with RH 52.5
available. Thermal comfort of the inhabitants is rarely percentage for rat-trap bond block and 33.7°C with
considered during the design and construction phase RH 48.6 percentage for mud block respectively. The
which has resulted in poor thermal environment research concludes that thermal conditions are more
within the building. For maintaining thermal comfort, favourable in the building constructed with rat-trap
mechanical systems are installed. Such practice has bond, filler slab and brick jali [6].
led to higher electricity consumption. Innovative use
of material and construction technology could be one Similarly,Baskaran and his friends made research on
of the key issues for sustainable building design for thermal performance of rat-trap bond and the
different climates. plastered English bond in Sri Lanka. English bond
and rat trap bond models were used for research
The rat trap bond is a masonry technique, where the purpose with orientation in west direction .The
bricks are used in a way which creates a cavity within finding of research shows that Rat-trap bond behaves
the wall, while maintaining the same wall thickness thermally well than the plastered English bond and
the house constructed with rat-trap bond is giving a
lower cooling load than English bond with plaster [4].
Similarly, study carried out on comparison of
performance of rat trap brick bond with the
conventional brick bond in Islamabad, Pakistan by
Ullah has concluded that RTB brick wall performed
very well in saving energy and reducing the electricity
bill cost. The cavity within the RTB bond wall
enhances thermal comfort as its R-Value is 0.70
m2K/W which is twice in comparison with English
and Flemish bond [7].
The research also has shown that Rat Trap bond is not
only good to save the electricity consumption but also
very good in the thermal load reduction as shown in
Figure 1: Rat Trap Bond Wall [5] table above.

769
Energy Optimization Potential and Thermal Comfort: A case of Use of Rat Trap bond in Residential
Building of Terai Region

Table 1: Electricity Cost Comparison of Rat Trap and months in a year is recorded with high humidity. i. e.
Conventional Construction [7] >70 percentage [8]. In order to fulfill the objective,
S.N. Month Rat trap Conventional Percentage quantitative method has been carried out in field. The
difference main research focuses to field study with monitoring
1 Jan 117.92 253.35 53 thermal performance of these two types of residences
2 Feb 11.34 35.5 68 on the month of February. The evaluation of thermal
3 Mar 237.15 373.25 36 environment of buildings contains with field data,
4 Apr 1901.25 3477.25 45 sample analysis, followed by discussion and aiming to
5 May 2934.5 5453.5 46
draw the results and conclusions.
6 Jun 2915.5 5427.75 46
7 Jul 2673.25 4959.25 46
8 Aug 2592.5 4803.25 46 3.2 Investigated buildings
9 Sep 2208.5 3945.25 44
10 Oct 1703.25 3308.25 49 Residential buildings of two to three storey has been
11 Nov 90.35 149.25 39 selected.Planning and construction technologies of
12 Dec 70.25 177.82 60 sixteen buildings has been reviewed. Similarly,
temperature and humidity was measured by using
digital thermometer. Orientation of the buildings has
been measured with mobile compass. Satisfaction
condition of the occupants has been observed through
informal interviews with questionnaire survey. Energy
consumption of buildings of the study area has been
accessed via.electric bill from NEA to observe the
difference in summer and winter caused by fans and
coolers for maintaining comfort .

4. Computer Simulation
Figure 2: Thermal Load Comparison [7]
4.1 General
The walls of the observed buildings have different
The figure above shows less thermal load incase of rat
sizes, dimensions and facing different directions. The
trap bond as compared to conventional bond.
experiment was done by using small models so as to
keep all the variables constant except the type of brick
3. Methodology bond. The isolation of individual effect will make easy
to predict the results without any difficulty. Computer
The methodology is based on both Quantitative and simulation is a best tool since it gives wide range of
Qualitative survey. The research involves of relevant flexibility to handle different cases [4].
literature reviews followed by data and information
gathered during discussion and interviews on site area. 4.2 The Simulation Software
The qualitative data is gathered through individual
interviews using semi-structured and structured The software adopted for the simulation of this project
questions, while quantitative data is acquired from is Autodesk Ecotect 2011. After combining the
secondary source (books, reports, internet). weather file in Ecotect, thermal analysis was the major
concern to study comfort level of the house. Here, a
few parameters were set and calculated to study
3.1 The study area
energy performance of the building. Parameters such
Terai region having dominating hot climate was as hourly heat gain/ loss, monthly load of active
suitable for research purpose, so Ram Nagar area of system, fabric gain/loss and passive solar breakdown
Butwal sub-metropolitan is selected as study area . were calculated for thermal analysis. The building is
The study area has highest average temperature simulated by changing the construction technology of
records at 30.6°C in May and March to October building as different scenarios. Overall compare and
accounts higher temperature; above 25°C. Almost 9 contrast was performed to dissect pros and cons of

770
 Proceedings of 8th IOE Graduate Conference

different construction methods. Similarly, energy

performance of various construction methods were
studied through energy modelling.

4.3 Building selected for simulation

A two and half storey building was selected for Figure 4: Scenario 1 Monthly loads/discomfort
simulation purpose. This building was chosen because
it involved both RTB and solid wall construction
method.
Max Heating: 9240 W at 23:00 on 12th January Max
Cooling: 13743 W at 12:00 on 23rd May
Similarly, in case of modified scenario, all the wall
(both outer and partition wall) is transformed to 9
inch brick wall to test the heat transfer performance
of the building. Following results were obtained from
analysis.

Figure 3: Building selected for simulation

The ground floor involves solid wall construction with

9” thickness of outer wall. Partition walls were of 4”
thickness with 10mm mortar on external and internal Figure 5: Scenario 2 Monthly loads/discomfort
surfaces. The first and top floor was constructed using
Rat trap bond technology. Upper floors were
constructed after years when the owner was Max Heating: 10295 W at 23:00 on 12th January Max
introduced with that technology. The walls were built Cooling: 15008 W at 12:00 on 23rd May
from brunt clay bricks. Likewise, the roof was flat
type concrete slab. The house is oriented towards Finally, optimized scenario was developed with all the
south with southern façade having balcony and a walls (both outer and partition) with RTB technology
porch. The fenestrations have single glazed windows .Following results were obtained.
and have no proper sun shading device, hence there is
direct sunlight in both summer and winter season.

5. Results
Three scenarios (i.e. base case scenario, modified
scenario and optimized scenario) were developed to Figure 6: Scenario 3 Monthly loads/discomfort
compare the energy consumption by building. The
base case scenario involved hybrid construction
technology with English bond on ground floor and
RTB in first and top floor. Following results were Max Heating: 8931 W at 23:00 on 12th January Max
obtained from analysis. Cooling: 13309 W at 12:00 on 23rd May

771
Energy Optimization Potential and Thermal Comfort: A case of Use of Rat Trap bond in Residential
Building of Terai Region

Table 2: comparison of annual energy demand in 7. Conclusion

different cases
Rat-Trap Bond(RTB) Masonry Technique can be a
Load Base case Scenario 2 Scenario 3
(KWh) Scenario (modified Optimized good initiation for achieving thermally comfortable
model model with model residence in hot climates of terai region where brick is
Existing all 9”thick (Cavity Wall) used as major building material.This technology is
(Scenario 1) brick wall) energy efficient as well as cost effective building
Heating 270.2114 305.3256 249.1133 construction. It’s simple, and easy to construct also
Cooling 990.8025 1101.3891 926.1060 reducing its impact on the environment by achieving a
Total 1261.0139 1406.7146 1175.2193 huge saving in the embodied energy consumption.
RTB technology can further aid in light weight
construction in earthquake prone zone like our
The table above shows annual heating and cooling
country. This is the peak time that our governments
load for the simulation building.the data obtained from
take up this issue on war-foot level and promote and
ECOTECT is in Wh which is converted to KhW for
subsidize as much as possible the use of such green,
convenience.
environment-friendly and cost-effective technologies.
This will help from individual /local level to
contribute in energy efficient building construction
6. Findings and discussions
with improved thermal comfort.
When all the parameters except construction
technology were kept intact, the total energy
consumed for maintaining thermal comfort in case of
8. Recommendations
existing scenario of hybrid construction technique (i.e. The study carried out during project work has
solid wall in ground floor with 9”thick outer wall and illustrated that rat trap bond technology has huge
4” thick partition walls) is 1261.0139 KWh .Out of potential in enhancing indoor thermal comfort and
1261.0139 KWh , 270.2114 KWh of energy is energy saving. Thus, detail research can still be
required for heating purpose. Similarly, carried out to make it more economical and reliable in
990.8025KWh of energy is required for cooling the field of energy efficiency. There are many gaps for
purpose. Cooling load is far greater than heating load the further future works , few of them are as listed
since summer season holds longer duration extending below.
from March to October. Extremely hot climate
prevails in May with highest cooling load of 13743
Wh. Similarly, the total energy consumed for 1. Rat trap bond wall technology can perform
maintaining thermal comfort in case of scenario 2, differently when roofing technology is changed.
with alternation of wall materials from hybrid
construction to 9” thickness of all the walls including 2. Addition of insulating material can further
partition walls is 1406.7146KWh. Out of which, enhance thermal performance of the building.
305.3256KWh is required for heating purpose and
1101.3891KWh is required for cooling purpose.
Finally in case of scenario 3, in which the wall
technology is changed to rat trap bond for all the walls References
including partition wall, the total energy consumed for [1] Liu Yang, Haiyan Yan, and Joseph C Lam.
maintaining thermal comfort is 1175.2193 KWh. Out Thermal comfort and building energy consumption
of 1175.2193KWh, energy required for heating implications–a review. Applied energy, 115:164–173,
2014.
purpose is 249.1133 KWh and for cooling purpose,
926.1060KWh is required. This reduction in energy is [2] Seyedehzahra Mirrahimi, Mohd Farid Mohamed,
Lim Chin Haw, Nik Lukman Nik Ibrahim, Wardah
due cavity in Rat Trap Bond technology which acts as Fatimah Mohammad Yusoff, and Ardalan Aflaki. The
insulation .hence it is seen that RTB technology can effect of building envelope on the thermal comfort and
contribute in saving energy for in the building for energy saving for high-rise buildings in hot–humid
achieving indoor thermal comfort. climate. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews,
53:1508–1519, 2016.
[3] KullABS. Climate condition of nepal, 2014.

772
 Proceedings of 8th IOE Graduate Conference

[4] K Baskaran, TGS Sampath, Dias WKAER, and UAA Journal of the Institute of Engineering, 10(1):172–
Vithana. Thermal comfort in different construction 183, 2014.
methods.
[10] Central Bureau of Statistics. National population and
[5] VSBK/CESEF Project Nepal. Principles of rat trap housing census 2011, 2012.
bond. 2011.
[11] Louis Cohen, Lawrence Manion, and Keith Morrison.
[6] Bhavana Patil and Sheeba Valsson. Contemporary Research methods in education. routledge, 2013.
vernacular built form and thermal comfort. Journal
of Civil Engineering and Environmental Technology, [12] Liu Yang, Rong Fu, Wenfang He, Quan He, and Yan
2(1):29–33, 2015. Liu. Adaptive thermal comfort and climate responsive
building design strategies in dry–hot and dry–cold
[7] Zeeshan Ullah, Engr Abdullah Khan, and areas: Case study in turpan, china. Energy and
Muhammad Jamaluddin Thaheem. Comparison Buildings, 209:109678, 2020.
of performance of rat trap brick bond with the
conventional brick bond. [13] NC Balaji, Monto Mani, and BV Venkatarama Reddy.
[8] Department Of Hydrology and Meteorology. Thermal performance of the building walls. In
Preprints of the 1st IBPSA Italy conference Free
[9] Sushil B Bajracharya. The thermal performance of University of Bozen-Bolzano, volume 346, pages 1–7,
traditional residential buildings in kathmandu valley. 2013.

773