Effect of density on thermal conductivity of bamboo mat board.

Bamboo mat boards (BMB) is a plywood-like wooden board produced from woven mats of bamboo that are soaked inadhesive resin and then pressed firmly together in a hot press.BMB is becoming popular as an eco-friendly material in housing applications such as panelling, ceilings, prefabricated shelters, roofs, doors and door panels etc., hence informat ion on thermal properties of BM B is desired to access it's heat insulating value, in addition to other physical and mechanical properties.Investigations were carried out to evaluate the thermal conductivity of bamboo mat board (BM B) and to study the effect of density on thermal conductivity of BM B. The thermal conductivity of BMB was determined by a steady-state guarded hot-plate method keeping temperature at 30 ° C and 50 ° C considering Ind ian climat ic conditions during summer at bulk densitiesof 0.75 to 1.65 g/cm 3 . Thermal conductivity increased from 0·121W/m -Kfo r bulk density 0·765 g/ cm 3 to0.384W/m -K for bulk density1.61 g/cm 3 . Linear trend line relationship between density and thermal conductivitywas derived with correlation coefficient value of 0.92. Fro m the results, it was found that thermal conductivity of BM B increased with increasing bulk density.