Abstract

Construction materials and systems for the thermal building envelope have played a key role in the improvement of energy efficiency in buildings. Urban heat islands together with the upcoming rising global temperature demand construction solutions that are adapted to the specific microclimate conditions. These circumstances are even more dramatic in the case of healthcare buildings where the need to preserve constant indoor temperatures is a priority for the proper recovery of patients. A new neonatal hospital, located in Madrid (Spain), has been monitored, and building energy simulations were performed to evaluate the effect of the building envelope on the energy demand. Based on the simulation results, the design of the building envelope was found to be insufficiently optimised to properly protect the building from the external heat flow. This is supported by the monitored results of the indoor temperatures, which went over the standard limit for about 50% of the hours, achieving up to 27 °C in June and July, and 28 °C in August. The results showed, on one hand, that solar radiation gains transmitted through the façade have an important impact on the indoor temperature in the analysed rooms. Heat gains through the opaque envelope showed an average of 8.37 kWh/day, followed by heat gains through the glazing with an average value of 5.29 kWh/day; while heat gains from lighting and occupancy were 5.21 kWh/day and 4.47 kWh/day, respectively. Moreover, it was shown that a design of the envelope characterised by large glass surfaces and without solar protection systems, resulted in excessive internal thermal loads that the conditioning system was not able to overcome.

Highlights

  • Climate change has become a key priority worldwide [1,2,3,4]

  • The internal conditions are more influenced by thermal transfer through the roof with a large surface area exposed to solar radiation

  • During the summer of 2018 the indoor air temperature, outdoor air temperature and solar were monitored to evaluate the influence of the envelope on the internal conditions in selected rooms radiation were monitored to evaluate the influence of the envelope on the internal conditions in in the hospital

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Summary

Introduction

Climate change has become a key priority worldwide [1,2,3,4]. An increase in temperatures together with global heatwaves [4,5] and temperature anomalies [6] are some of the visible effects of climate change. There are other heat effects produced by the built space (asphalt, building materials, the layout of the road network, natural vegetation removal, etc.) that increase the effect of UHI due to heat accumulation. These are factors that modify the radiation balance between the ground and the air, reduce evaporation, increase surface water runoff and decrease wind speed [10,11]. These effects are of great importance in the urban exchange of energy in addition to the energy efficiency of buildings that has been widely researched [12,13]

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