Abstract
During the past decades buildings have become one of the highest energy demanding component of cities, hence alternatives solutions been sought to reduce their impact. This study presents an experimental evaluation to improve the thermal performance of roofs in semi-arid climate conditions when Phase Change Material (PCM) and natural ventilation are combined. In addition, the results evaluated the thermal comfort under an adaptive model. The performance of two modules (base and PCM) were defined as a function of indoor air temperature, lag time at peak temperature, surface temperature, and heat flux. Four configurations were evaluated: continuous roof components (Cases A) and with an air gap in the roof (Cases B), both with and without natural ventilation. The results, for the configurations with PCM, showed a maximum indoor air temperature reduction between 3.94% and 7.02% and a peak lag time between −10 and 70 min. Likewise, an increase in the solidification time of PCM between 19 and 41% was observed with natural ventilation. The configuration of PCM with 30 cm air gap without natural ventilation obtained the best result, reducing the maximum interior air temperature by up to 2.5°C, 6.85% cooling load reduction, and thermal comfort improved by 50 min.
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