Search results for " COMFORT"
showing 10 items of 132 documents
A model for managing and evaluating solar radiation for indoor thermal comfort
2007
Thermal comfort of people occupying indoor spaces depends, to a large extent, on the direct component of solar radiation incident on the human body. In turn, even the diffuse component of the solar radiation could affect the thermal sensations of people. Despite this evidence, at the present there is a lack in the availability of simple and reliable methods capable of taking into account the influence of the solar radiation on thermal balance in the human body. In this work a comprehensive method is presented for the computation of the mean radiant temperature of people in thermal moderate indoor environments in the presence of solar radiation. The effects produced on the amount of solar ra…
Evaluation of the ERA5 reanalysis-based Universal Thermal Climate Index on mortality data in Europe
2021
Air temperature has been the most commonly used exposure metric in assessing relationships between thermal stress and mortality. Lack of the high-quality meteorological station data necessary to adequately characterize the thermal environment has been one of the main limitations for the use of more complex thermal indices. Global climate reanalyses may provide an ideal platform to overcome this limitation and define complex heat and cold stress conditions anywhere in the world. In this study, we explored the potential of the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) based on ERA5 – the latest global climate reanalysis from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) – as a h…
Vegetation and Thermal comfort in temperate areas: proposal of an integrated methodology for urban and building retrofit
2014
The paper points out the main outcomes of a doctoral research carried out at the Department of Architecture of the University of Palermo, aimed at investigating the issues of environmental, social and economic sustainability related to the recovery of the existing building stock with focus on social housing. In particular, starting from the analysis carried out on a real case of the city of Palermo, through the use of specific simulation tools, the research provides a new methodology for the design and the assessment of the effectiveness of plants and Building-Integrated Vegetation systems used as a cost-effective solutions for urban and building retrofit, contributing to new knowledge and …
The control of indoor thermal comfort conditions: introducing a fuzzy adaptive controller
2004
The control and the monitoring of indoor thermal conditions represents a pre-eminent task with the aim of ensuring suitable working and living spaces to people. Especially in industrialised countries, in fact, several rules and standards have been recently released in order of providing technicians with suitable design tools and effective indexes and parameters for the checking of the indoor microclimate. Among them, predicted mean vote (PMV) index is often adopted for assessing the thermal comfort conditions of thermal moderate environments. Unfortunately, the PMV index is characterised by non-linear features, that could determine some difficulties when monitoring and controlling HVAC equi…
Overview and future challenges of nearly zero energy buildings (nZEB) design in Southern Europe
2017
In times of great transition of the European construction sector to energy efficient and nearly zero energy buildings (nZEB), a market observation containing qualitative and quantitative indications should help to fill out some of the current gaps concerning the EU 2020 carbon targets. Next to the economic challenges, there are equally important factors that hinder renovating the existing residential building stock and adding newly constructed high performance buildings. Under these circumstances this paper summarises the findings of a cross-comparative study of the societal and technical barriers of nZEB implementation in 7 Southern European countries. The study analyses the present situat…
An Overview on Solar Shading Systems for Buildings
2014
Abstract In recent years, different types of solar shading devices have been proposed, depending on building orientation, location, window characteristics, etc. They can contribute to improve or worsen building thermal and lighting performances both from an energy and comfort point of view. The present paper reports a critical analysis of some studies that investigate shading devices’ effects on building thermal and/or lighting performances. This article points out the difficulty in comparing the different results given the lack of uniformity between the studies, since they analysed buildings with different characteristics, locations and using various indices. Therefore a protocol to carry …
The relavance of indoor comfort in the process of prisoners’ rehabilitation: a case study
2016
The history of prisons is full of contradictions in every historical period and the evolution of prison buildings expresses many faces in the history of each country. The concept of punishment imposed on the offender has undergone several changes over the centuries, related to culture, politics, and to the evolution of the human thought. For centuries, tiny closed spaces have been adapted for the offenders' detention, without ever thinking to create an ad hoc functional distribution of spaces. The issue of the design of prisons has often been a reason of debate, and it is still an open field of discussion. From a legal point of view, in recent years there has been a rethinking of the proble…
Sizing analysis of interior lighting using tubular daylighting devices
2017
Abstract Daylight access and indoor thermal comfort are key issues for high design level of sustainable buildings. In fact, daylight provides energy savings and visual comfort condition that can foster higher productivity and performance. This paper proposes a case study of sizing of daylight devices for zenith light. It enables the decision-making process of the designer to reach high levels of daylight factor. The proposed method is shown with an example of application. For the case study, a room in south of Italy, 24 different solar tunnels configurations and 12 cases with different number of skylights have been evaluated.
Building green covering for a sustainable use of energy
2013
Nowadays the growth of the cities increased built and paved areas, energy use and heat generation. The phenomenon of urban warming, called urban heat island, influences negatively outdoor comfort conditions, pollutants concentration, energy demand for air conditioning, as well as increases environmental impact due to the demand of energy generation. A sustainable technology for improving the energy efficiency of buildings is the use of green roofs and walls in order to reduce the energy consumption for conditioning in summer and improve the thermal insulation in winter. The use of green roofs and walls can contribute to mitigate the phenomenon of heat island, the emissions of greenhouse gas…
Numerical Modelling of Room Thermal Comfort Conditions
2006
Particular heat transfer coefficients of building elements gives quantitative notion only about heat losses through this building element. Analysis of the overall heat balance and heat losses of complete building and study of particular contribution of building elements in overall balance allows one to figure out the state of the building and find the building elements of bounding construction with most significant heat losses. Project variants of the buildings (or rebuilding in case of renovation), which ensure the desirable economy of energy and proportions of investments can be find varying the proportions of the surface area of building elements (e.g., windows and doors). A lot of facto…