Eco-designed Heat Insulating Panels: Experimental Development for Social Houses in an Arid Area of Argentina

This paper focuses on the design and development of the heat insulating panels that use as filling a local volcanic material called Pomeca Puzolanica. The object of this group of processes is to analyze and apply a system of ventilated façades in the cooling of the Social Houses. This is achieved under the minimum quality standards in the Cuyo Arid Area of San Juan, Argentina. The methodology used in the experimental development of heat insulating panels for thermal conditioning of social houses in Arid and Seismic Areas, includes managing the design and development of the product, during the following stages: in the Design Stage, by establishing objectives, considering the differences which originated this Proposal with Eco-design; in the Manufacturing Stage, by focussing sustainability problems in the generation of Alternatives and Pilot Models for future testing; and in the Testing Stage, by analyzing experiments or simulations and by evaluating results. A Sustainable Technological Solution is obtained from this transformation using a local insulating material, under the 14006 ISO Standard at every life-cycle stage. Its thermal behavior shows convenient results which have been verified by an electronic system of climatic measurements for sensing their variations, thus contributing to the Rational Use of Energy during their life-cycle.