A naturally ventilated cavity roof as potential benefits for improving thermal environment and cooling load of a factory building

Abstract

The impact of natural ventilation of a roof cavity on improvement of the thermal environment and reduction of cooling load of a factory building is discussed. A computer program was developed with the logic in a companion paper [1] to observe the effect of cavity ventilation on the operative temperature of the occupied zone in the factory. Comparisons were made between factories with a cavity roof and a single roof in the Japanese climate. Results showed that the cavity roof was superior to the single roof in lowering the operative temperature by about 4.4 °C. When the factory was air conditioned, the cooling load reduction reached approximately 50% during the summer to maintain an operative temperature of 26 °C. Results showed that a naturally ventilated cavity roof has excellent potential for improving the indoor thermal environment and energy savings of factory buildings without complicated cooling installations and life time power consumption.