Investigating the Thermal Comfort Conditions in an Existing School Building in Egypt

Abstract

This paper investigates, using software modeling and numerical simulations, the annual thermal performance of a public primary school in Cairo governorate in Egypt. This investigation identifies how much time the students achieve thermal comfort in their classrooms during the whole academic year. It is also considered as an attempt to magnify the need for solutions that can enhance thermal comfort in classrooms. As a support to our computer modeling and simulation, this paper preforms also an analysis to the thermal comfort indices via field measurements for the internal temperatures and humidity of a classroom by using the Elitech UR4HC temperature-humidity data logger. The field measurements have taken place in June 2016 for a whole school day from 8:30 am until 14:30 pm. Energy Plus simulation tool has been used utilizing its modeling interface Design Builder. The numerical simulation proposed has considered the real construction aspects and parameters of the classroom case study. Measurements validate the simulation results and ensure that the tool is reliable to be used in the annual simulations, which is the main concern of this paper. This paper presents, through annual building thermal-performance simulations, the forecasting for the yearly mean indoor air temperatures, Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) model, discomfort hours, and internal heat gain balance. Simulation results indicate the existence of a high level of thermal discomfort during the whole academic year. The annual analysis also indicates around 45% of the working hours are exceeding the maximum limit of the comfort temperature range. Furthermore, the results present a high level of average annual internal heat gain balance throughout the academic year. As a main contribution of this paper, the simulation results draw attention to the importance of integrating new passive cooling strategies or energy efficient cooling systems in order to: stabilize the indoor temperature, increase the students' thermal comfort and decrease the internal heat balance for enhancing the thermal performance of school buildings in the future.

An empirical study on the thermal behavior of rice husk in eco-friendly brick for external walls of buildings

“…The results show that the burned clay bricks (R0) lead to a linear regression of R 2 = 0.29 and correlation coefficient r =0.54; this value can be compared with the mud-brick with waste material additives (R1) that leads to a linear regression of R 2 = 0.47 and correlation coefficient r =0.69. It can be observed from Figure 11 that the indoor temperature in R1 was within the thermal comfort range according to the acceptable range for thermal comfort in naturally ventilated buildings based on the ASHRAE 55 standard [65,66]; the internal temperatures were within this range about 25% more compared with the reference case (R0).…”

Sustainable Optimization for thermal comfort and building energy efficiency in Cairo

“…The base case model is built in Grasshopper based on Rhinoceros 3D. [16] The case study was chosen to be located in the city of Cairo, Egypt (30° N-31° E). Also, as Cairo is the capital of Egypt and the center of industrial and administration work in Egypt, many fully glazed office buildings were built in the last few decades following the International Style.…”

“…Also, as Cairo is the capital of Egypt and the center of industrial and administration work in Egypt, many fully glazed office buildings were built in the last few decades following the International Style. Cairo is characterized by a clear sunny sky for almost all the year round [16].…”

Investigating the Integration of Air-Based Thermo-Active Building Structure (A-Tabs) Into School Buildings in Egypt

“…Furthermore, there is not any research that monitors the after construction running costs. Based on the results in [19], which investigate through numerical simulations the annual thermal performance of a classroom in governmental school building in Egypt, the discomfort hours in the classroom have reached 45% of annual academic hours. This paper investigates through software modeling and numerical simulations the thermal performance of the same classroom case study when its structure is integrated into active thermal mass strategies, especially Air-based thermo active building structure (A-TABS) in Egypt.…”