Paper Title
Steady-State Heat Flow Through Building Floor For An Edge-Insulated Slab

Abstract
Heat loss or gain of the buildings through contact with the ground is an important factor of the efficiency of the process of designing the building. This factor has a powerful influence in the demand for energy, particularly in residential buildings or large business. This is because they rely heavily on mechanical cooling or heating. Numerical simulation was undertaken to determine the optimal size of internal horizontal insulation for the building floor under different operational parameters on the total heat loss from the building. This insulation is to lay an insulation layer starting from the building wall running horizontally at the floor level towards the building center area. The dimensionless length of this insulation is D1. The reduction in heat flow through the building ground is studied at different weather conditions of minimum and maximum convection effects both internally and externally with minimum and maximum outside temperatures. The reduction in heat flow increases sharply with D1, where it reaches a reduction of 50 % at an insulation length of D1 less than 0.1. This reduction then becomes close to linear again at higher insulation lengths until very close to full insulation , D1=0.4 where a 100% reduction is reached (completely insulated floor). Generally it can be observed that addition of insulation length, D1 reduces the concentration of temperature contour lines underneath the building and consequently reduces the temperature gradient and as a result the heat flow is reduced. Keywords- Heat flow; Building floor; temperature distribution.