Study of the Thermal Properties of Raffia Bamboo Vinifera L. Arecaceae

Abstract

Raffia is a kind of fast-growing palm tree, from the family of Arecaceae, encountered in marshy areas and along rivers. In this study, the “Raffia Bamboo” is the stalk of a palm, made of a fragile marrow inside a thin shell, smooth and hard to protect the latter. In our region, this material is widely used to build all the low-cost traditional houses and furniture, to make granaries storage of dry products, to build chicken coops, to make decoration. Thus, various jobs are organized around this material, with the fight against poverty. To our knowledge, information on its thermal properties is almost nonexistent. The experimental determination of the transverse thermal properties of the dry shell, the dry marrow, and the whole dry bamboo helped to find, for each, a specific heat, a thermal diffusivity, a thermal conductivity, and finally a thermal effusivity. From the analysis of results, we deduce that the thermal properties of raffia bamboo vinifera L. Arecacea make it a very good thermal insulator.