Optimization of thermal efficiency in traditional clay-based buildings in hot–dry locations. Case study: the south-eastern region of Morocco

In Morocco, the building sector is responsible for more than 30% of the country’s energy consumption. The latter tends to increase significantly in parallel with the high urbanization level, which requires the improvement of the thermal building’s efficiency and to reduce their energy consumption. In this paper, we followed two approaches: (i) an experimental study aiming at the determination of the thermal parameters characterizing the local construction materials usually used in the buildings in the south-east of Morocco. (ii) TRNSYS simulations to predict and optimize the thermal performances for two types of building in this region. After that, particular interest was given to treat the effect of the roof thickness and inclination on the average daily temperature evolution and the effect on the consumption of energy cooling and heating. Additionally, the energy consumption of the proposed building has been calculated and compared to the regular ones. Results show that the building based on clay and traditional construction materials provides more thermal comfort in comparison to the brick building. This is manifested by a temperature drop of 6.5% during the summer. Furthermore, this type of construction reduces the annual energy consumption by 27%. On the other hand, an increase of the reed layers up to five may reduce the temperature by 2 °C, thus improving the thermal efficiency of buildings. Besides, the integration of a roof with an inclination α = 30° within the clay construction reduces the energy consumption by 9%.