Natural ventilation in Beirut residential buildings for extended comfort hours

Abstract

This paper examines the effectiveness of natural ventilation in Beirut for the purpose of extending comfort periods within living and sleeping zones of the residential buildings. A field survey is conducted to estimate the common window opening and degree profiles. A base case model representing a typical residential apartment located in Beirut was then adopted in integrated environmental solutions (IES) software and calibrated by experimentation through monitoring simulated and measured data indoor. The calibrated IES model was used to evaluate typical wall layering and building local materials and their role in improving indoor comfort with natural ventilation. The simulation results showed that an optimal wall configuration of higher insulation and capacitance, comprised of a 5 cm layer of strawboard sandwiched between a 2 cm × 10 cm wall of masonry Hempcrete units, achieved the highest degree of thermal comfort and enhanced comfort in winter season when compared to the base case.

Passive Building Energy Saving: Building Envelope Retrofitting Measures to Reduce Cooling Requirements for a Residential Building in an Arid Climate

“…Various studies have assessed how simulation tools can be used to determine a building's energy and thermal functioning [38,39]. Able to handle intricate thermal modeling, the DesignBuilder version 7.0 tool has been assessed in research with comparable goals to the present study [40][41][42]. In alignment with the DesignBuilder manual, the necessary data were determined for the location, weather file, and the building's geometry, as well as its construction materials, HVAC system, operational details, and internal load.…”

A methodology for generating a synthetic local urban climate weather profile for building energy simulations in hot arid areas

“…In line with the study objective in assessing the outdoor microclimate condition on the building energy performance, the new microclimate weather data extracted from previous phases was then used as an input in the building energy modelling program (BEM) to calculate the energy consumption for the examined building. The Integrated Environmental Solution's Virtual Environment (IESVE, 2011) is an industry standard and validated software, its analysis includes thermal and comfort analysis, daylighting, solar studies, egression, and carbon emissions code compliance (Azhar and Brown 2009;Annan et al 2014;Elnabawi 2020).…”