A Comparative Simulation Study of the Thermal Performances of the Building Envelope Wall Materials in the Tropics

Abstract

The building walls which form the major part of the building envelope thermally interact with the changing surrounding environment throughout the day influencing the indoor thermal comfort of the space. This paper aims at assessing in detail the different aspects (thermophysical properties, thickness, exposure to solar heat gain, etc.) of opaque building wall materials affecting the indoor thermal environment and energy efficiency of the buildings in tropical climate (in the summer and winter days) by conducting simplified simulation analysis using the Integrated Environmental Solutions Virtual Environment (IES-VE) program. Besides, the thermal efficiency of a number of selected wall materials with different thermal properties and wall configurations was analysed to determine the most optimal option for the studied climate. This study first developed the conditions for parametric simulation analysis and then addressed selected findings by comparing the thermal responses of the materials to moderate outdoor temperature and energy-saving potential. While energy consumption estimation for a complete operational building is a complex method by which the performance of the wall materials cannot be properly defined, as a result, this simplistic simulation approach can guide the designers to preliminary analyse the different building wall materials in order to select the best thermal efficiency solution.

Date pits based nanomaterials for thermal insulation applications—Towards energy efficient buildings in Qatar

“… A. Heat transfer process across the solid wall and composite wall [ 49 ], and B. Schematics of the three-dimensional thermal conductive network formation for Sand (S)/SiO 2 Particles and Nano-date pits (DP). …”

“…Additionally, the thermal diffusivity (α, m 2 /s) of a sample relates to the unsteady state of heat transfer and indicates how fast the material temperature reaches thermal equilibrium with the surrounding [ 49 ]. α with a high value shows faster heat spread through the sample.…”

Walls composed of different materials: a brief review on thermal comfort

“…O software com maior número de utilização na amostra (Quadro3) é o EnergyPlus, utilizado para realizar cálculos de carga de equilíbrio térmico, materiais de variáveis condutividades térmicas e conforto térmico para os ocupantes. Os estudos com o método de simulação podem orientar os projetistas a analisar preliminarmente os diferentes materiais de parede do edifício, em diferentes condições climáticas (JANNAT et al, 2020;AMIRZADEH, A. et al, 2018).…”

“…Considerando que as pessoas passam cerca de 80 a 90% do tempo em ambientes internos (Jannat et al,2020), é necessária a preocupação com a qualidade desses ambientes para propiciar bem estar aos ocupantes (HWANG et al, 2019).…”

“…Li et al (2018) mencionam que as paredes e telhado do edifício, como uma massa térmica, são capazes de ajustar a temperatura do ar armazenando calor quando a temperatura está alta e liberando calor quando a temperatura está baixa. Diversas variáveis, como temperatura, umidade, vento, precipitação, radiação solar e outras características da zona climática, bem como paredes, telhados, janelas e comportamento dos ocupantes, influenciam no conforto térmico de um edifício (JANNAT et al, 2020); (AKSAMIJA; PETERS, 2017); (LEO SAMUEL et al, 2017).…”