Investigating the Physical, Mechanical and Thermal Properties of Common Roofing Materials in Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka, the most common roofing materials use for residential housings are the clay tiles, asbestos sheets and cement tiles. In this work efforts have been made to test physical and mechanical properties of the existing calicut clay tiles , asbestos corrugated sheets and pressed cement tiles according to SLS 2:1975, SLS 9:2001 and SLS 1267:2005 and to find out whether they satisfy the requirements specified in the standard. Thermal conductivity has been measured by Lee's Disk method. According to the test results, the chosen calicut clay tile sample satisfied all the requirements except width and mass whereas width and pitch of corrugation were not satisfied in asbestos corrugated sheets and thickness was not satisfied in cement tiles. Thermal conductivity of clay, asbestos and cement tile was 0.7106 W/mK, 0.4733 W/m.K and 0.5619 W/m.K. It cannot be predicted that which material offers the best indoor thermal comfort only by considering the thermal conductivity value itself of the roofing material