Long-Term Monitoring of Thermal Performance in Vernacular Buildings: A Case Study in Montesinho Natural Park, Portugal

The influence of courtyard on the thermal performance of Development Department office building in University Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP, Pauh Putra campus) is investigated through simulation study for the effect of ventilation on indoor air temperature and relative humidity of the building. The study is carried out using EnergyPlus simulator interface within OpenStudio and SketchUp plug in software to measure both of air temperature and relative humidity hourly on 21 April 2017 as a design day. The results show that the ventilation through the windows facing the courtyard has sufficient effect on reducing the air temperature compared to the ventilation through external windows since natural ventilation is highly effective on driving the indoor warm air out to courtyard. In addition, the relative humidity is reduced due to ventilation since the courtyard has high ability to remove or dilute indoor airborne pollutants coming from indoor sources. This indicates that the presence of courtyard is highly influential on thermal performance of the building.

The characterization of vernacular buildings is crucial for understanding the historical, social, and cultural significance of a community. These buildings reflect a collective memory and result from a long adaptation process to the local environment. Documenting them facilitates better decision-making regarding the preservation of their intrinsic values and long-term conservation. Unfortunately, depopulation processes in many areas threaten this invaluable heritage. Furthermore, this heritage is often overlooked due to a lack of awareness and appreciation by local authorities and residents. This paper presents a methodology for documenting and inventorying vernacular built heritage, with the main goal of contributing to promoting its valorization. The methodology integrates Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) with GIS tools to create large-scale inventories. Using the Montesinho Natural Park (Portugal) as a case study, the methodology facilitated the collection of data from over 2,000 buildings in 13 villages. The collected data was then used to characterize the vernacular built heritage of selected villages in terms of authenticity, conservation state, materials, construction systems, past interventions, present use, and occupancy. The findings of this study can serve as a valuable resource for developing inventories of vernacular buildings in rural areas, contributing to the protection of this distinctive architectural heritage.

Effect of adjacent shading on the thermal performance of residential buildings in a subtropical region

Increasing in population and their growing demands impacted the cities to grow larger and get denser with time. This high density led the cities to suffer from more vulnerable weather events such as heat, heavy rainfall and storms. Climate changes needs to be addressed immediately for a sustainable growth and development. The growth of urban form vertically has played a major role in affecting the micro-climate hence causing severe heat intake leading to Urban Heat Island Effect (UHI), altered wind patterns, reduced evapotranspiration and air pollution. The understanding of the factors affecting climate i.e. temperature, precipitation, hours of sunshine, humidity and wind velocity and their effects on the built environment can help propose design solutions to combat these effects. Understanding the effect of microclimate in urban metropolitan context can help in optimisation of the thermal performance of the building. Thermal performance of the building is context sensitive and hence requires passive solutions.This study investigates to address the gap of micro-climate affect the thermal performance of a building in a mixed use setting having different climatic conditions and how thermal optimization strategies can mitigate in preventing the heat gain and heat loss. This optimum result will be taken by performing stimulations using various software’s for a specific urban setting. Different aspects will be considered in order to get appropriate data that will lead to proper result. The analysis of the collected data will be used to address the key aspects of design to be taken care of for the improvement of the thermal performance of a high-rise residential building in a mixed-use setting. With the need of proper material usage, built mass, orientation and the size of the openings a building can withstand extreme effects of the surrounding temperature and climate hence providing thermal comfort and sustainable development.

A comprehensive review on thermal performance and envelope thermal design of mosque buildings

Riyadh city is the fastest growing city in Saudi Arabia. The rapid urban growth that happened recently in Riyadh was not based on the traditional urban planning principles, which have been established and applied for the city development process. The imported building regulations have created a new urban structures and street patterns. The contemporary urban form in Riyadh city is based mainly on traffic and economic consideration with the neglect of environmental dimensions. This research aims to examine the impacts of building regulations on the thermal performance of residential buildings in Riyadh city, with the ultimate goal of establishing planning guidelines that consider the environmental conditions of the city. The methodology adopted for achieving the aim of this study consists of two phases. First, the literature related to building regulations development in Riyadh, as of 2018, was reviewed. Second, buildings energy simulation was conducted to examine the thermal performance of the typical current status of residential building blocks in Riyadh city, and then several changes to building regulations were made to investigate their impacts on the thermal performance of buildings. The results showed that the impacts of Riyadh building regulations on the thermal performance of residential buildings differ across the evaluated cases. The ratio of building height to street width, urban block street orientation, and building orientation are the main factors affecting thermal performance of buildings within urban block. The study also concludes that adjusting the ratio of building height to the distance between buildings could have a significant impact in reducing cooling loads. This study will help policy makers, planners and designers to investigate the shortcoming in the current building regulations.

This work presents a simulation study on the impact of natural ventilation on the thermal performance and thermal comfort of residential buildings of different forms in the hot-dry climate of Amman, the capital of Jordan. Three existing triple-storey residential buildings with different forms, i.e., rectangular, L-shape, and U-shape, are taken as case studies. Models with similar construction and dimensions of the buildings under investigation are designed using the OpenStudio plugin SketchUp software. Two rooms within these buildings have been considered for simulation with the aid of the EnergyPlus simulator for two cases: the basic case with no ventilation and the case with ventilation. The thermal parameters, including the air temperature, relative humidity, air speed, and mean radiant temperature of both rooms, have been extracted from the simulation. The thermal performance of these buildings is analyzed based on the indoor air temperature and mean radiant temperature, while the thermal performance is investigated via the ASHRAE-55 adaptive model. The results show that the rectangular-shaped building has the best thermal performance in unventilated conditions for the middle room on the middle floor (Room 1). In contrast, the U-shape shows better results for the west-northern room on the same floor (Room 2). On the other hand, introducing natural ventilation to the buildings reduces the indoor temperature and, subsequently, enhances the thermal performance where the buildings transform to be within the comfort zone most of the time, according to the ASHRAE-55 adaptive model. Generally, rectangular and U-shaped buildings show comparable thermal performance, while L-shaped buildings have relatively the worst performance.

Thermal performance of a lightweight building with phase change material under a humid subtropical climate

Climate change is becoming a serious issue for the construction industry, since the time scales at which climate change takes place can be expected to show a true impact on the thermal performance of buildings and HVAC systems. In predicting this future building performance by means of building simulation, the underlying assumptions regarding thermal comfort conditions and the related heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) control set points become important. This article studies the thermal performance of a reference office building with mixed-mode ventilation in the UK, using static and adaptive thermal approaches, for a series of time horizons (2020, 2050 and 2080). Results demonstrate the importance of the implementation of adaptive thermal comfort models, and underpin the case for its use in climate change impact studies. Adaptive thermal comfort can also be used by building designers to make buildings more resilient towards change.

Climate change affects all areas, including those with low temperature. Wonosobo belongs to highland areas with low temperature. The thermal performance of buildings is influenced by micro-environment climate so that the climate change will affect the thermal performance of buildings. Vernacular buildings are believed to be able to make the occupants comfortable. The vernacular buildings in tropical highlands have either exposed stone walls or wooden walls. The present research seeks to analyze the thermal performance of building envelopes with wooden walls and exposed stone walls in highland areas. Simulation method using the Ecotect software was applied. There are 12 building models with a variety of roofing and flooring were selected. The results of the simulation indicate that the difference between indoor and outdoor temperatures of one model and other models is not significant. Warm temperature mostly occurs in houses with exposed stone walls. Highland areas need much warmth so that cold temperature will not disturb occupants.

ABSTRACTAs a result of the change and development of Egyptian society, Egyptian governmenthas focused its attention of comprehensive development to various directio ns. One of theseattentions is housing, construction and land reclamation in Upper Egypt to go out from thenarrow valley which is about 5% of Egypt area. East El- Owauinat is one of these areas. It isan agriculture project and must be valid all the facto rs needed for sustainability. East El -Owauinat region is located at 220 28` N latitude and 280 42` E longitude. The climate of thisregion is caricaturized by; aridity, high summer daytime temperature, large diurnaltemperature variation, low relative humidity and high solar radiation reaches to about1000W/m2 on horizontal surface in summer seasons .In such environments, man losses his ability to work and to contribute effectively in thedevelopment planning due to the high thermal stress affected on him. The strategy of buildingin this regioy to understand the needs of the people but to create an indoor environment whichis suitable for healthy, and comfortable to live and work in it. Also, reduce or if possibleeliminate the energy expenditure for environmental control. In order to achieve this, attentionhas to be focused on building design which is a function of building form, orientation,location, and materials used. This study deals with the bio-climatic analysis of East El-Owauinat region and the thermal performance of building in this region to valid the EgyptianEnergy Efficiency Residential Code. The results show that, the air catcher, court and Passivecooling systems (evaporative cooling), maintained the indoor climate in the thermal huma ncomfort zone during the hottest period under the effect of climatic conditions of East El -Owauinat. Orientation, size, shape, building materials and outdoors -climatic factors influencein energy auditor of the building envelope. Also shading devices, ins ulating materials, andsmart glass achieve a harmony building with environment , and save energy by about 60%.Thermal insulation is needed for all exposed roofs and the required thermal resistance hasa minimum R-value ≥2.5 m2K/W. The required thermal resistance for walls must bebetween 0.9 and 1.3 m2K/W.

How to improve the thermal performance of buildings with one simulation run? The heat exchange index applied to hot climates

Freshwater ecosystems are essential to human well‐being and most have high biodiversity. However, this biodiversity has been suffering severe declines owing to the expansion of human activities. Protected areas (PAs) are essential for biodiversity conservation and have proved to be successful in stopping species extirpation if managed properly. Unfortunately, they are usually focused on terrestrial biodiversity, leaving freshwater ecosystems aside.The main goal of this study was to determine the influence of a PA (Montesinho Natural Park (MNP), Portugal) on freshwater biodiversity. Aquatic macroinvertebrates and fishes were surveyed, and biodiversity (richness, abundance, Shannon‐Wiener diversity, and Pielou's evenness) and water quality (IASPT) indices were calculated inside, at the periphery and outside the MNP.Results showed that the PA does not affect positively either water quality or the two faunal groups monitored. Macroinvertebrate communities were not influenced by the PA; however, the abundance of pearl musselMargaritifera margaritiferawas significantly higher and size was significantly lower inside the MNP. The richness and abundance of fish communities were significantly higher outside the MNP, except for troutSalmo truttaabundance which was higher inside the MNP.Given these results, the MNP does not guarantee the safeguard of overall aquatic biodiversity and habitats and we propose an extension of MNP to downstream areas in order to increase the number of species (mostly cyprinids) under legal protection. This work demonstrates that terrestrial PA planning and management should also consider aquatic biodiversity to achieve successful conservation.

Effectiveness of phase change material in improving the summer thermal performance of an office building under future climate conditions: An investigation study for the Moroccan Mediterranean climate zone

The increase of thermal comfort and energy performance of buildings is an actual problem of modern architecture and construction. The paper based on field study gives the assessment of thermal comfort and energy performance for multifamily residential building in temperate continental climate. The program of the field study included the measurements of microclimate parameters in rooms of various apartments (first stage) and of the thermal performance of building envelope elements (second stage). The results of the field study showed that the thermal comfort and thermal performance of building envelope elements were not provided. The deterioration of thermal comfort and thermal performance of the building can be caused by numerous defects allowed in the course of construction. Thermal modernization of the building is necessary for the purpose of elimination of the specified defects and increase of energy performance.