The effects of thermal insulation on energy consumption in small office buildings in the context of subtropical monsoon climate

Abstract

Thermal insulation plays a significant role in reducing cooling load as well as energy consumption for air conditioning of an office building in the context of subtropical monsoon climate of Bangladesh because a huge amount of heat gain occurs through building envelope in tropical climatic regions. Although the thermal insulation into the building envelope decreases the heat gain and energy consumption, the existing literature lacks in representing the quantitative measurement of the impact of thermal insulation on the energy consumption in the context of Bangladeshi climate. This study investigates the quantitative impact of thermal insulation on energy consumption of an existing commercial bank. The entire research was carried out from the perspective of energy simulation of a real existing commercial buildings using the Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Building Energy Modeling (BEM) tools. Numerous design alternatives have been developed using different types of building envelope materials for energy simulation. An extensive data analysis of simulation results was conducted to predict the quantitative impact of thermal insulation on energy consumption. This study concludes that the studied building can save 13% energy consumption annually and throughout the lifecycle by incorporating fiberglass thermal insulation and double-glazing lowe windows into the external facades of the building. The output of this work can add new knowledge to the Bangladeshi construction sector about the energy-saving potentiality of thermal insulation that has not prevailed before.

Investigating the building commissioning practices in Turkey

“…The real estate sector, involving residential and commercial buildings, is responsible for 21% of the world's delivered energy consumption [1] and the consumption of large proportions of natural resources [2]. The energy consumption of the industry is expected to increase even more with the economic development [3]. The complexity of buildings increases with the increasing number of interacting systems and components [4], resulting in a high risk of accidents [5].…”