Passive natural cooling techniques for wooden buildings in warm climate: case study

摘要

The consequences of the global climate change are perceptible even in Italy, where in the last 15 years the mean temperature values increased of 0.4 °C in the northern part of the country and of 0.7°C in the southern one. It is besides well known that the 44% of the total energy consumption in Italy is due to the building sector, and the situation is unfortunately not improving yet. It is therefore of primary importance to outline guidelines for designers in order to realize low energy buildings with high performances not only in wintertime but even in wanner periods in order to reduce the energy demand for cooling. This paper deals with a research activity carried out by the University of Trento together with the Polytechnic of Bari concerning the analysis of abioclimatic building with a prevalent wooden structure placed in Mezzane di Sotto (Verona - Italy), provided with a wind tower for passive cooling and a sun space for passive heating. In particular, two main aspects have been investigated: the behaviour of the building during real life conditions by means of a survey of the main inner thermal and air distribution characteristics; the theoretical behaviour of the natural ventilation system by means of the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) numerical simulation. While the model reflects the behaviour as it should be. the on site continuous survey gives the possibility to assess the model outputs and to understand the users influence on the real building performance. In this way, some simple rules can be given concerning the design of sustainable buildings with passive cooling techniques in Northern Italy.