Prefabricated and low impact residential modules: comparative analysis between ventilation systems

Abstract

The recent natural and anthropic disasters have led some of today’s experimental researches to be oriented towards the study of residences for temporary living. During an emergency, the lack of primary resources and services often forces part of the affected population to live in inadequate health and environmental conditions. These problems are aggravated by the psychological damage to which the displaced people are subjected, as well as by the temporary nature of the residence. The temporary residence project should respect different requirements, e.g. construction speed, the ease of transport and the flexibility of the interior spaces. The aim of the present research is to improve the internal comfort of modular and prefabricated living areas designed for emergencies, through the application of a controlled mechanical ventilation system. The study aims to develop combinable and transportable modules that allow to obtain multiple spatial and planimetric combinations of accommodation thanks to an easy and quick junction system, the same for almost all panels. The easy assembly and disassembly as well as the ease of transport make these modules reusable and easy to install, fundamental characteristics as different emergency situations can occur in places very distant from each other. To achieve the required performance, a controlled mechanical ventilation system has been designed to make the modules adaptable to any environmental and climate context. A comparative analysis was carried out between a mechanical ventilation system and natural ventilation. For the mechanical ventilation an autonomous system for each module was chosen compared to a centralized system with ducts distributed in the house. The proposed solution allows to guarantee an adequate level of air health, without a significant increase of the associated costs.