الفهرس 
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Abstract
Buildings have a great impact on the environment, they consume materials, demand energy, generate waste and produce toxic emissions which represent the world’s current environmental pressures. Thermal properties of the building envelope are one of the primary measures that affect the energy consumption of buildings. Therefore, a proper selection of the building materials is necessary. Recent studies determined the thermomechanical benefits of plastic waste integration in building materials. Nevertheless, these applications are very limited and require further investigation. Plastic waste is one of the main solid wastes that increases annually and threatens our ecosystem. The absence of appropriate disposal methods, the low degradability of plastics and the low amount of recycling have increased plastic pollution. Hence, finding innovative solutions to integrate plastic waste in building materials may be beneficial and may enhance building’s thermal performance, if integrated properly. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the efficiency of integrating recycled plastic in the building envelope by evaluating its impact on the building’s thermal performance. In addition, it addresses the challenge of implementing recycled plastic to develop a lightweight, thermally enhanced eco-friendly construction material without jeopardizing its mechanical properties. Enhancing the thermal behaviour of buildings conserves the world’s energy consumption, the high demand for mechanical cooling (HVAC) and heating demand. In addition, it minimizes global greenhouse emissions, the heaviness of solid waste on the landfills and obtain a cleaner and more sustainable environment.
The aforementioned targets are achieved by applying the following methodology. The thesis starts with an introductory chapter, Chapter 1, highlighting on the research motivation that raised the research questions, aim, objectives, and methodology. Chapter 2 introduces the main plastic types, properties and the common recycling methods. An analytical review on the previous studies is then conducted in Chapter 3. A comparative analysis is proposed on the various applications of recycled plastic in the construction sector focusing on the potentials, thermomechanical properties and limitations. This chapter ends with a selection of different composites that employ recycled plastic and have shown optimum thermomechanical results. The properties of the selected composites are then employed in the experimental part of the thesis to be further investigated. The experimental part consists of two phases: laboratory tests and building energy simulation. Chapter 4 covers the applied research methods; it presents the laboratory experiment, the simulation methodology and sets the parameters of different proposals. In the first phase, a series of tests are conducted on plastic cement composites to assess their thermomechanical properties focusing on compressive strength, tensile strength, density and thermal conductivity. In the second phase, multi-investigations are applied to various building envelopes of an office building using DesignBuilder software to evaluate its thermal energy performance in Egypt. The proposed building envelopes are created from different compositions that involve recycled plastic. An optimization tool is then used to identify the optimum scenarios for the different proposals. Chapter 5 presents the experimental results that determine higher thermal capabilities of the developed composites. The integration of plastic waste in the building envelope enhances the thermal performance of the building. Finally, the research re-examines in Chapter 6 the achievement of the goals set, and the validity of the research questions claimed in Chapter1. It ends by proposing some recommendations for further research.