Assessing the impact of the envelope's dynamic thermal transmittance on dwelling's cooling performance with respect to the occupants' thermal comfort

摘要

Regarding the constantly increasing cooling demands in the building sector due to climate change effects, strategies for reducing the cooling demands are vital. Among the major strategies is thermal insulation, however, overheating phenomenon during the summer months is a frequent problem in over-insulated buildings. In this study, a typical dwelling was examined in ten Mediterranean regions concerning the influence of the envelope's thermal transmittance on its cooling performance. A passive dynamic insulation system was also developed and implemented, while its cooling performance was optimized through a rule-based control strategy for the cooling period of each region. Regarding always the occupants' thermal comfort perception, increased cooling loads were recorded for most of the regions with the highly insulated envelope, which reached up to 12% for the city of Damascus, while in the hot-desert regions the picture is reversed. The dynamic insulation system displayed great potential, as its efficiency was maximum with the super-insulated envelope, resulting in up to 61% less cooling demands for the city of Seville. Finally, by disregarding the occupants' interference in the cooling system, as most of the national legislations do, higher cooling needs are calculated, that in our study reached up to 49% for the super-insulated envelope.