Comparing the energy implications of FRP and concrete residential construction in a hot arid climate

Housing prices in Israel have become exceptionally prohibitive, and this includes single family housing. Conventional construction is mainly cement and concrete based, and this has significant negative impacts on cost, time and environment. Can modern industrialized processes and materials alleviate such issues? This paper compares a conventional cement concrete residential building with one made of Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) composite material. It assesses the relative advantages of each one in terms of overall energy implications during their life cycle. Results show that the FRP house has an advantage of higher thermal resistance, which leads to lower energy consumption during cold periods of the year. Onsite erection time savings is another significant advantage price-wise. Low thermal mass of the FRP option is a disadvantage that makes it more energy consuming during summer. The main disadvantage is the noticeably higher Embodied Energy (EE) of the FRP in the production phase (cradle-to-gate) in comparison to the parallel concrete house EE for the same phase. The main tools used were EnergyPlus for thermal simulations and Simapro for LCEA.