Evaluation of the thermal performance of housing envelopes as passive cooling systems

Abstract

Over the years, climate change has generated an increase in the average temperature of the planet, which has led to greater consumption of electrical energy for the use of air conditioning systems. Insulating envelope materials are considered a viable passive solution as they offer internal air conditioning, cooling, and/or heating of buildings that lead to thermal comfort with reduced energy consumption. This article compares the application of different insulating materials in an existing single-family home located in a hot-dry climate. To this end, the procedural methodology has been applied by carrying out a bibliographic review of different involutes currently used in the construction of the buildings and 14 models are proposed that will be simulated under the same input variables of the base model and meteorological data of the city of Bucaramanga validated from a meteorological station located on site. The results of the simulations show that all 14 models show a decrease in temperature with reference to the "base model"; This difference can be explained by the presence of the selected materials that slightly change the thermal properties of the wall. Finally, this research allowed us to determine that the occupants of the simulated spaces in the base model are inside the thermal comfort range by 61.96%, which represents 5,438 hours of the modeled year, having 38.03% of hours of discomfort in the measured time. This study can be useful for the selection of envelopes and different buildings with passive cooling requirements.