Effect of Street Morphology on Buildings’ Thermal Storage in a Hot and Arid Climate: Case Study of Biskra (Algeria)

Kaoutar Benamor,Moussadek Benabbas

doi:10.34118/jbms.v6i2.72

Abstract

This work is an experimental study focusing on the relationship between street morphology and thermal storage in buildings. The first aim of this study is to reduce air conditioning usage in hot and arid areas, taking as example Biskra city (Algeria), during the long summer period (5 months), by reducing thermal storage. This leads to the reduction of carbon emissions to a level higher than the individual construction level in order to design a sustainable city, using measuring instruments (kimo HD 100 and Cason CA 380), we measured outdoor air temperature, wall temperature, relative humidity and wind speed on three street morphologies ; the (canyon, dihedral and open streets). These streets are different in terms of morphological indicators such as Sky View Factor (SVF) and albedo materials (a). We also applied mathematical equations across the thermal balance to calculate thermal storage. Our second goal was to identify the morphological indicators of the streets affecting the thermal storage of buildings. In this context, the obtained results showed that SVF was the most influential parameter on the heat storage.

Highlights

According to the fourth report of the Intergovernmental experts on climate change (IECC) in 2007, the temperature of the Earth could rise from 1.1°C to 6.4°C by the end of the 21st century (Coquillaud, 2015)
This case study is conducted on the town of Biskra which is located in the south-east of Algeria in order to reduce the temperature in the city, called the Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon and to reduce the active air conditioning and CO2 emissions, on a superior level than the individual construction (Arantes et al, 2016)
There is an interaction between the external environment and the thermal comfort inside the buildings (Nikolopoulou et al, 1999), as the street is a thermal regulator between the inside and the outside and a key factor that influences the heat storage in buildings (Golany, 1996; Adolphe, 2001), this article studies the effect of street morphology on the thermal storage of buildings in a hot and arid climate, in order to protect the environment and reach a sustainable city

Summary

Introduction

According to the fourth report of the Intergovernmental experts on climate change (IECC) in 2007, the temperature of the Earth could rise from 1.1°C to 6.4°C by the end of the 21st century (Coquillaud, 2015). This case study is conducted on the town of Biskra which is located in the south-east of Algeria in order to reduce the temperature in the city, called the Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon and to reduce the active air conditioning and CO2 emissions, on a superior level than the individual construction (Arantes et al, 2016). In this way, it is better to adopt an energy strategy in the design of efficient cities in the long term, by working on the urban form, through the morphological indicators of the streets (Bouyer, 2009). There is an interaction between the external environment and the thermal comfort inside the buildings (Nikolopoulou et al, 1999), as the street is a thermal regulator between the inside and the outside and a key factor that influences the heat storage in buildings (Golany, 1996; Adolphe, 2001), this article studies the effect of street morphology on the thermal storage of buildings in a hot and arid climate, in order to protect the environment and reach a sustainable city

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Conclusion