Effect of Architectural Building Design Parameters on Thermal Comfort and Energy Consumption in Higher Education Buildings

Salah Alghamdi,Dariusz Alterman,Sittimont Kanjanabootra,Waiching Tang

doi:10.3390/buildings12030329

Salah Alghamdi, Dariusz Alterman + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings12030329

Copy DOI

Abstract

It has been challenging for designers to identify the appropriate design parameters that would reduce building energy consumption while achieving thermal comfort for building occupants. This study aims to determine the most important architectural building design parameters (ABDPs) that can increase thermal comfort and reduce energy use in educational buildings. The effect of 15 ABDPs in an Australian educational lecture theatre and their variabilities on energy consumption and students’ thermal comfort for each parameter were analysed using Monte Carlo (MC) techniques. Two thousand simulations for every input parameter were performed based on the selected distribution using the Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) technique. Sensitivity analyses (SA) and uncertainty analyses (UA) were used to assess the most important ABDPs in terms of thermal discomfort hours and energy consumption. The study found that the ABDPs, such as cooling set-point temperatures and roof construction, significantly reduce the operative temperature by up to 14.2% and 20.0%, respectively. Consequently, these reductions could significantly shorten the thermal discomfort hours, thereby reducing energy consumption by 43.7% and 41.0%, respectively. The findings of this study enable building designers to identify which ABDPs have a substantial impact on thermal comfort and energy consumption.

Highlights

This study was based on two objective functions, energy consumption and thermal comfort, calculated using the ASHRAE Heat Balance equations for energy load calculations and the ASHRAE Standard 55 Heat Balance model for thermal discomfort
These figures show the range of possible annual heating and cooling energy loads and thermal discomfort hours, together with the frequency of each interval
220 scenarios among 2000 simulation runs for 15 architectural building design parameters (ABDPs) was between 51,367 kWh and

Summary

Introduction

Energy use for heating, cooling and ventilation in buildings accounts for more than one-third of global energy consumption and around 40% of total CO2 emissions [1]. The energy consumption per square metre for buildings needs to be reduced by around 30%. By 2030 (compared to 2015) in order for the global climate ambitions set forth in the. According to previous studies [3–5], improvement in building performance has a key role to play in reducing energy consumption. It is important that buildings are designed to provide high performance in various scenarios, including a wide variability of thermal occupant behaviour [6]. Building performance can be expressed by different performance indexes, such as energy consumption, occupant satisfaction and indoor environmental quality (IEQ) [7,8]. Providing a comfortable and healthy indoor environment is one of the core functions of building energy systems [9,10]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion