Residential Building In Egypt Research Articles

Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Passive Design Strategies in Achieving Thermal Comfort in Residential Buildings in Egypt

This study aims at thermal comfort improvement in residential buildings through utilization of passive design strategies and energy efficiency measures. The study investigates the impact of passive strategies on thermal comfort in hot dry climate of Egypt. A climatic analysis of three cities: Aswan, Cairo and Alexandria was conducted to examine passive design strategies’ efficacy. Thermal comfort in a residential building was examined by DesignBuilder simulation software. Annual simulations were performed on the model where several passive design strategies were applied. Passive design strategies’ potential was quantified and a parametric analysis was conducted for thermal comfort improvement. The results demonstrate that applying passive design strategies can be effective in reducing discomfort hours in hot climate. Comfort hours could be increased from 22.6% to 33.1 % in Aswan, while in Cairo can be increased from 31.1% to 38.6 %, and in Alexandria from 36.9% to 46 %. The research findings could be used by architects for thermal comfort improvement in residential buildings.

Building for a sustainable future: investigating the thermal performance of innovative and local wall materials in an Egyptian housing unit

ABSTRACT Nowadays, the majority of nations are facing the challenge of global warming which has caused less thermal comfort in indoor environments with further energy consumption. To mitigate these negative impacts, selecting appropriate building materials with environmental design principles is crucial to meet user’s needs. This study aims to investigate the impact of implementing innovative and locally sourced building materials in the wall construction of a residential building in Egypt; to improve energy consumption and users’ thermal comfort. The thermal performance of six alternative walls was analyzed and compared using computer simulation software. Alternative wall systems included innovative materials, such as Marmox boards and aerogel panels, as well as local materials such as double wall, Singer clay blocks, and Mudbrick with strawbale. The simulation results demonstrated that the Mudbrick strawbale exhibited the best thermal performance among all alternatives. It reduced energy consumption by 45% and decreased discomfort hours to an average of 18 hours per year. The innovative materials, Marmox board, and Aerogel panel, also showed promising results that were comparable to those of Mudbrick strawbale. This confirms that local materials can offer superior thermal performance when used in appropriate wall techniques. The overall study results revealed that implementing alternative wall strategies using environmentally sustainable building materials in residential settings can lead to energy savings ranging from 29% to 45%, as well as a reduction in annual discomfort hours by over 50%. This study highlights the effectiveness of using alternative wall strategies as a solution for addressing environmental adaptation gaps in residential settings.

Comparing Retrofitting Techniques by Energy Cooling Loads Analysis: Simulation-Based Model Study for Residential Building in Egypt

Comparing Retrofitting Techniques by Energy Cooling Loads Analysis: Simulation-Based Model Study for Residential Building in Egypt

Thermal and Energy Efficiency of Roof Tiles Fabricated from Crushed Aluminum Slag and Kaolin Clay for Social Residential Buildings in Egypt

Thermal and Energy Efficiency of Roof Tiles Fabricated from Crushed Aluminum Slag and Kaolin Clay for Social Residential Buildings in Egypt

A simulation-based study to evaluate the cooling potential of nocturnal radiative cooling systems for residential buildings in Egypt

During the first years of the last decade, Egypt used to face recurrent electricity cut-offs in summer. In the past few years, the electricity tariff dramatically increased. Radiative cooling to the clear night sky is a renewable energy source that represents a relative solution. The dry desert climate promotes nocturnal radiative cooling applications. This study investigates the potential of nocturnal radiative cooling systems (RCSs) to reduce the energy consumption of the residential building sector in Egypt. The system technology proposed in this work is based on uncovered solar thermal collectors integrated into the building hydronic system. By implementing different control strategies, the same system could be used for both cooling and heating applications. The goal of this paper is to analyze the performance of RCSs in residential buildings in Egypt. The dynamic simulation program TRNSYS was used to simulate the thermal behavior of the system. The relevant issues of Egypt as a case-study are firstly overviewed. Then the paper introduces the work done to develop a building model that represents a typical residential apartment in Egypt. Typical occupancy profiles were developed to define the internal thermal gains. The adopted control strategy to optimize the system operation is presented as well. To fully understand and hence evaluate the operation of the proposed RCS, four simulation cases were considered: 1. a reference case (fully passive), 2. the stand-alone operation of the RCS, 3. ideal heating & cooling operation (fully-active), and 4. the hybrid-operation (when the active cooling system is supported by the proposed RCS). The analysis considered the main three distinct climates in Egypt, represented by the cities of Alexandria, Cairo and Asyut. The hotter and drier weather conditions resulted in a higher cooling potential and larger temperature differences. The simulated cooling power in Asyut was 28.4 W/m² for a 70 m² absorber field. For a smaller field area of 10 m², the cooling power reached 109 W/m² but with humble temperature differences. To meet the rigorous thermal comfort conditions, the proposed sensible RCS cannot fully replace conventional air-conditioning units, especially in humid areas like Alexandria. When working in a hybrid system, a 10% reduction in the active cooling energy demand could be achieved in Asyut to keep the cooling set-point at 24 °C. This percentage reduction was nearly doubled when the thermal comfort set-point was increased by two degrees (26 °C). In a sensitivity analysis, external shading devices as a passive measure as well as the implementation of the Egyptian code for buildings (ECP306/1–2005) were also investigated. The analysis of this study raised other relevant aspects to discuss, e.g. system-sizing, environmental effects, limitations and recommendations.

Toward Sustainable Dynamic Consumer Response Structure for Residential Buildings in Egypt

Toward Sustainable Dynamic Consumer Response Structure for Residential Buildings in Egypt

Occupants’ Perspectives of the Use of Smartphones during Fire Evacuation from High-Rise Residential Buildings

Over the past few years there has been a significant change in fire safety design and management. As the possibility of safe escape is the most crucial aspect of a building’s fire safety features, the understanding of human behaviour under fire conditions is important for a successful evacuation. Previous research studies have developed models, prototypes, and serious games that help engineers/architects to design or firefighters to improve design so that the building facilitates a smooth evacuation process. Although these studies have looked into human behaviour, perceptions of important stakeholders (such as occupants, structural engineers, fire engineers, facility managers) are still not understood. These perceptions are important for the appropriate application of technology for evacuation. The broader research effort, of which this paper is part, stems from the premise that bespoke evacuation instructions can be sent directly to evacuees’ smartphones. Information from a BIM model with the aid of sensors can be used to customise these evacuation instructions. The prospect of information being delivered to occupants during a fire emergency is still at its premature phase and more research is needed. Twenty-three interviews were conducted with occupants who currently live in high-rise residential buildings in Egypt and the United Kingdom to understand their views of using smartphones to assist during fire evacuations. The sampling strategy targeted occupants who currently live in high-rise residential buildings but have not necessarily experienced a fire evacuation. The research clearly shows the importance of smartphones during evacuation and the role they can play in assisting occupants to find the fastest and safest egress route. The interview findings will assist in future research to develop an evacuation framework system that could be implemented for high-rise residential buildings.

The impact of using different weather datasets for predicting current and future energy performance of residential buildings in Egypt

As prognostic methods for buildings’ performance in present and future, energy simulations mainly rely, among other inputs, on weather datasets including Typical Meteorological Years (TMY), where the selected measurement period of the weather station is a crucial parameter. To quantify the predicted energy consumption’s discrepancies that may occur while using a recently generated TMY (2018-TMYx) instead of the commonly used Egyptian TMY (ETMY) that were created in 2003, both weather datasets, in addition to their future climate change projections in 2050 and 2080, were applied into Design Builder’s energy performance simulations for two residential buildings in different regions of Cairo and Aswan, Egypt. Results show that using weather datasets from different periods caused a maximum difference in annual energy consumption per flat by 933 kWh in present and 1508 kWh in 2080. The study proves the obsolescence of the commonly used ETMY due to the significant differences in energy simulation readings compared to the 2018 datasets.

Enhancing Natural Ventilation in Low-Rise Residential Buildings in Egypt through Solar Chimney Application

Enhancing Natural Ventilation in Low-Rise Residential Buildings in Egypt through Solar Chimney Application

DESIGNING THE ENTRANCES OF RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS, BETWEEN ORIGINALITY AND CONTEMPORANEITY TO ACHIEVE SUSTAINABILITY STANDARDS.

The design of the entrances to the residential buildings is one of the most important impressions that affect man upon entering the dwelling, as well as it has many cultural, material, and social connotations for the owners of the residential buildings. And when studying models of the entrances of traditional Islamic buildings in the Mamluk and Ottoman eras, we find an elegant taste and commitment to many design criteria, the most important of which is achieving privacy and achieving social and environmental sustainability standards for individuals, compared to what we see today in terms of designing residential entrances of contemporary buildings. As we find that many of the contemporary entrances neglect the achievement of sustainability standards and at the same time neglect the achievement of aesthetic standards. Therefore, we seek in this research to reach aesthetically and environmentally designs criteria, to achieve a good design for the entrance of residential buildings in Egypt, through the use of the analytical and comparative approach between the models presented in traditional Islamic residential buildings, and modern residential buildings in Egypt, and compare them with international models to reach balanced design standards that are suitable for the present time and to achieve sustainability standards.

Development of Drainage and water supply systems to reduce water consumption in Residential Buildings in Egypt

The issue of water is gaining Egypt's attention in recent times, especially after the start of the Ethiopian Dam and Egypt's entry into the era of water poverty, where water is considered one of the most important natural and environmental resources. Moreover, the constant pursuit of increasing development rates, Wherever the residential building sector acquires a large proportion of water consumption between different activities. The research aims to rationalize water consumption in residential buildings by developing water supply and drainage systems responsible for distributing water within various units and spaces. Consequently, the research focuses on water treatment and the integration of water reuse techniques within residential buildings. The research studies a repeated porotype of economy housing in new cities in Egypt. The study surveyed number of users of the same levels to get the water consumption rates per unit. The research finds that water consumption can be reduced by 30.4% in residential units by modifying water supply and drainage systems design Which is reflected in the cost savings. In addition, the cost of proposed system can be returned within 2.5 years comparing to the savings cost.

Life cycle assessment of a residential building in Egypt: A case study

The present study discussed the significant environmental impacts of a residential building located in New Cairo, Egypt. This covered all life cycle steps from cradle to cradle with a projected 60-year life span: (i) an inventory of all the construction materials were analysed, covering the building structure as well as the energy consumption; (ii) three types of functional units were defined; (iii) the two top building materials were examined, and a sensitivity analysis was conducted to investigate the impact associated with the choice of building materials. The result shows that two life cycle phases concerning, manufacturing and operation, were more significant in all of the impact categories. It also shows that building structure and flooring result in most of the environmental loads. In terms of the sensitivity analysis, it was found the structural concrete had the largest impact, dominating all selected impact categories except ODP. Finally, limitations and challenges are discussed to explore better design decisions for selecting buildings’ structural systems in future studies.

Solar chimney combined with earth to-air heat exchanger for passive cooling of residential buildings in hot areas

In this study, a novel interrelationship between the ventilation rate and the solar chimney design parameters, EAHE geometrical specifications, pressure drop, and climatic conditions in the hot arid area was presented based on experimental and numerical comprehensive investigations. This new correlation simplified designing and optimizing of the passive cooling/heating and ventilation system. Moreover, this correlation was used in a case study of passive cooling/heating and ventilation of a two-stories residential building in Egypt by TRNSYS simulation. The indoor operative air temperatures, heating and cooling loads, thermal comfort conditions, energy consumptions/savings, and CO2 emission savings were calculated and analyzed. Two cases were simulated and compared with the basic-case. In case 1, the basic-case combined with the solar chimney and EAHE. Case 2 had a hybrid passive and active ventilation, which included case 1 equipped with electrical fans that continued operating for 24 h. Finally, an economic study was conducted to calculate the payback period and discount payback period for the construction of such a system using the local Egyptian market equipment. The basic case results show that the zonal temperature was more than the ambient temperature yearly, and in summer, the indoor temperature exceeded the surrounding temperature by 5–6 °C. Using the proposed system in case 1 and case 2 attained a zonal temperature around 5 °C and 9 °C less than the ambient temperature in the summer season, respectively. However, the total annual electrical energy and CO2 emission savings were 42.9 kWh/m2/year and 4.545 tons/year, respectively, in case 2. Finally, the simple payback period was 5.4 years, and the discount payback period was 6.8 years.

Identifying the Influence of Design Variations on the Performance of PV Systems for Net-Plus Energy Residential Buildings in Egypt

Identifying the Influence of Design Variations on the Performance of PV Systems for Net-Plus Energy Residential Buildings in Egypt

Economic evaluation of rooftop grid‐connected photovoltaic systems for residential building in Egypt

Economic evaluation of rooftop grid‐connected photovoltaic systems for residential building in Egypt

Effectiveness of High Energy Efficiency to Minimize Energy Consumption for Residential Buildings in Egypt

The effects of global warming and climate change have become a critical issue in our world where the average air temperature rises to 2 ° C that leads to sea-level rise, seasonal disturbances storms, floods, and massive fires. [1] Increasing energy demand during the cooling period has become an essential issue in Egypt. Solutions can be applied to develop the building envelope for existing buildings by implementing a different technique that can enhance energy performance and improve indoor thermal comfort .The roof is the one of building envelope components which can reduce energy consumption and enhance indoor thermal comfort in buildings. The scope of this paper deals with evaluating the energy performance of residential buildings using different roof techniques: cool roof, green roof, isolated roof and integrated roof with Phase Change Materials (PCM) in Egypt that can lead to different solution of roof to achieve ideal energy performances .The assessment is carried out by using the Design Builder Software which can be able to calculate the monthly energy consumption.

A hybrid approach for a cost estimate of residential buildings in Egypt at the early stage

Owners need clear information about the cost at the early stage, while information about drawings and designs are limited in this stage. The purpose of this research is to propose a hybrid model using artificial neural networks and the regression analysis to estimate the cost of residential buildings in Egypt. Real data were collected from 174 real residential projects in Egypt. The Delphi technique was used to reach a consensus on the key factors affecting early stage cost estimation. Artificial neural network models were developed with various numbers of hidden layers and types of activation functions. The sensitivity analysis showed that the most effective factors in the cost estimate at the early stage are the number of floors and the area of the floors. The multiple linear regression, polynomial regression, gamma regression, and Poisson regression were used. The proposed hybrid model was extracted from the ANN model and the regression models using multiple linear regression. The mean absolute percentage error of the hybrid model was 10.64% which is less than the absolute percentage error of the ANN model and the regression models. The results of the hybrid model indicate that the model was successful in estimating the cost of residential projects and would be useful for decision-makers in the construction industry.

EFFECT OF DIFFERENT WINDOWS’ GLAZING TYPES ON ENERGY CONSUMPTION OF A RESIDENTIAL BUILDING IN A HOT-ARID CLIMATE “Case Study: Residential Building in New Cairo City”

The increasing energy consumption of residential buildings in Egypt which reached about 42% of total energy consumption in latest energy statistics, affirms the need for energy conscious design of buildings. Many researches aim at guiding new buildings design to be energy-efficient, however, retrofitting existing buildings can result in significant reductions in energy consumption. This paper outlined different window glass types led to a reduction in cooling loads via the building envelope for the existing building. This paper aims to evaluate the effect of changing windows glass types to reduce energy consumption in the hot arid climate of greater Cairo. The energy analysis carried out by employing advanced simulation via DesignBuilder software for a residential building located in Cairo; this case study analyzed the performance of seven different window glass types in a residential building facade in the different cardinal orientations. The model was validated by taking a field measurement to measure and quantify the temperature of a selected room taken within three consecutive days in May and June 2019 and compared to the simulation tool results, the average error percentage was 2.15%. The results of the simulation showed that changing glass type can reduce energy consumption by up to 18.8%, indicating the significance of energy efficient retrofitting of existing residential buildings.

Roof Planting as a Tool for Sustainable Development in Residential Buildings in Egypt

Roof has direct influence on thermal ease and energy preservation in and around buildings. Roof Planting is a strategy that can be a beneficial solution in diverse climates to decrease energy utilization in buildings, proposes enriching the aesthetic potentials and architecture presentation of buildings and for enhancing the built environment and increasing investment opportunity. It helps to tackle the shortage of green space in numerous areas and delivers the city with open spaces that aids ease heat effect and offers human population with a correlation to the outside. The research problem presented in the demonstrations of the confronts presented by quick urbanization and expansion, many environmental problems as pollution, dense urbanization and heat effect that creates a negative impact on the environment. The fast growing population in Cities undergo from vanishing of green areas which lead to dispossession of open space. The paper assumes that by applying roof planting to the case studies in Residential buildings in Egypt can improve quality of life, as an effective tool for sustainable development goals represented in social, economic and environmental factors. The paper methodology focuses on the analysis of some international examples and the lessons learned and applicability in Residential buildings in Egypt. The research aims to present the potentials of roof planting in abiding electricity utilization and decreasing CO2 releases in hot environments. The paper studies the impact of roof planting on the performance of buildings. The results demonstrate the sustainable development goals of using roof planting under diverse design conditions and postulate assistance for design of roof planting in alike climates.

The Challenge of Greening the Existing Residential Buildings in the Egyptian Market Base Case

Existing buildings are the massive percentage of the building stock, and therefore, are the key to improving efficiency; buildings account for an enormous share of the climate change crisis, and approximately 40% of the world total energy consumption (McArthur & Jofeh, 2015). The Egyptian stock of buildings includes about 12 million buildings. 60% of these buildings are residential. The final electricity consumption of the residential buildings in 2010 was 51370 GWh and increased in 2014 to reach 62441 GWh. Thus the share of total energy consumption was 18.8% in 2010 and increased to reach 21.55% in 2014 ("Technology Roadmap - Energy efficient building envelopes.", 2013). Therefore, the residential sector plays an important role in the mitigation of energy consumption crisis, which is expected to increase. The research field and initiatives in Egypt on the green buildings and green buildings retrofits are rare and, if existing, are weakly applied. Unlike in developed countries, there is a large research on building retrofits, e.g., the Residential Property Assessed Clean Energy (R-PACE) program and the weatherization assistance program (WAP) of the department of energy (DOE). Both are examples of the incentives to green building initiatives globally. This paper discusses the challenge of greening the existing residential buildings in Egypt by demonstrating an analysis of the motives and the barriers to applying green measures in the Egyptian market. The research methodology comprises the analytical-comparative method. In the analytical part; the paper identifies the current situation of the residential sector energy consumption in Egypt, and the benefits of greening existing buildings for tenants, investors, and owners. In the comparative part, the current situation of Egypt's Green Market Business Case is compared with the international one, discussing the challenge of greening the residential buildings. The paper summarizes the opportunities to improve the building energy efficiency, incentives, and policies that are developed to address significant financial and technical awareness to building efficiency. These policies will help enable critical market actors to make decisions to promote energy efficiency in existing buildings.