Intruduction.
This research therefore aims to develop natural fiber cement roof sheets with better thermal properties to reduce the amount of heat that goes into a residential building, and also to reduce energy consumption. Coconut is one of the most common food and industrial crops.
The coconut coir fiber can be removed from the coconut husk by hand or machine and is widely available to use as a raw material in fiber cement products due to its quantity, price, suit able mechanical properties, non-toxicity and chemical reactibility 131 However, there is waste from coconut processing that when discarded or bumt may create problems for the environment. Brown and white coconut coir fibers are two commercially available types of coirs.
The waste oil palm residue extracted from the pure oil palm represents 12 percent of the oil palm bunch and can be used for other purposes such as fiber production or fuel .The characteristics of oil palm fiber waste have 20-100 mm in length, 0.2-0.8 mm in diameter, and 1300 1450 kg/m in density.
The aspect of residential buildings that most influences their reliance on air-conditioning is the building envelope components, particularly the thermal properties of wall and roof This research aims to study and develop fiber cement products made from natural materials, including coconut coir fiber and oil palm fiber, to be used as roof sheets and wall panels.Furthermore the production of fiber cement roof sheets using natural fibers is still low.
Therefore, once the use of these natural materials increases, the production costs will be reduced and natural fiber will be a viable alternative to synthetic materials, which waste both energy and resources in their production.