Roof thermal performance is one of the most important factors for achieving indoor thermal comfort in a tropical house designed for natural cross ventilation. This study, based on field study data, ...discusses roof design strategies for a hot-humid climate by investigating the impacts of roof thermal performance on indoor thermal comfort in a naturally ventilated house. Conventional roof design for tropical houses mainly focuses on the roof's day-time thermal performance for limiting solar heat gain through the roof structure. However it ignores night-time heat loss to the sky by long wave radiation. This study investigates the impacts of different roof designs on both day-time and night-time indoor thermal comfort in a naturally ventilated tropical house. This paper also discusses the relationships between roof structure (and roof element) design and roof thermal performance in the hot-humid tropical climate.
U-value is an important property of façade materials which control the heat gain and loss from building façade. U-valves great impact on building energy consumption and indoor thermal comfort. Many ...countries have developed standards for façade U-values for residential buildings. However, these standards cannot be adopted for the Singapore context since the hot and high humidity weather conditions in Singapore differ greatly from that of temperate countries. Though Singapore has developed a set of standards for controlling the amount of heat gain through facades for air-conditioned commercial buildings, there is no provision for non airconditioned residential buildings. This paper discusses the determination of acceptable U-values for naturally ventilated residential building facades in Singapore by means of parametric computational simulations. The study takes into consideration the effects of various factors such as orientation and window size as well as the effect of shading devices.
Traditional naturally ventilated houses are not designed for active thermal control. When natural ventilation is not sufficient for thermal comfort and a fan is unable to restore thermal comfort ...because the air temperature is higher than the people's skin temperature, temporary air-conditioning is needed. To maintain indoor thermal comfort and save cooling energy, a new concept of active thermal control for a naturally ventilated house is explored. This study aims to use both passive and active thermal controls to restore thermal comfort for occupants in a traditional naturally ventilated house and to save cooling energy. This concept of active thermal control can be applied not only to the traditional naturally ventilated house but also to active thermal control design for a large indoor space separated or surrounded by partitions in a free running building.
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