Abstract
The building walls which form the major part of the building envelope thermally interact with the changing surrounding environment throughout the day influencing the indoor thermal comfort of the space. This paper aims at assessing in detail the different aspects (thermophysical properties, thickness, exposure to solar heat gain, etc.) of opaque building wall materials affecting the indoor thermal environment and energy efficiency of the buildings in tropical climate (in the summer and winter days) by conducting simplified simulation analysis using the Integrated Environmental Solutions Virtual Environment (IES-VE) program. Besides, the thermal efficiency of a number of selected wall materials with different thermal properties and wall configurations was analysed to determine the most optimal option for the studied climate. This study first developed the conditions for parametric simulation analysis and then addressed selected findings by comparing the thermal responses of the materials to moderate outdoor temperature and energy-saving potential. While energy consumption estimation for a complete operational building is a complex method by which the performance of the wall materials cannot be properly defined, as a result, this simplistic simulation approach can guide the designers to preliminary analyse the different building wall materials in order to select the best thermal efficiency solution.
Highlights
Indoor environment quality is one of the major health concerns in the world as people spend about 80–90% of their time at home or other public indoor environments [1]
This paper mainly focuses on the diverse features of building opaque wall materials which influence the indoor thermal comfort and energy efficiency of the buildings in the tropical climate
This paper presents the fundamental computer-based simulation experiments of different opaque wall materials and wall configurations in the tropical climate conditions to understand in detail the dynamic thermal and energy performances of the wall materials
Summary
Indoor environment quality is one of the major health concerns in the world as people spend about 80–90% of their time at home or other public indoor environments [1]. Heat insulation priority climate zone consists of the tropical and subtropical regions where high humidity, temperatures, and solar radiation are the major stresses. Materials in this area are mainly used for solving the sun shading and heat insulation [4,5]. Most of the tropical developing countries are facing difficulties in achieving indoor thermal comfort in the absence of mechanical control because of inappropriate building design. The application of appropriate materials for efficient building envelope design would be an effective alternative to attain the standard indoor thermal comfort condition due to the lack of energy supply in tropical developing countries
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