Impact of building architecture on indoor thermal comfort level : a case study at University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka

Abstract

With ever-increasing prices of energy, designing energy efficient buildings has become vital. which demands multidisciplinary effort including architectural and engineering aspects since the early designing stage to day to day operation. Thermal comfort level of two such energy efficient buiIdings designed to facilitate general activities of the university are considered in this study. Lumped Mass Thermal (LMT) model was used to evaluate the net heat gain to the building through solar heating, internal heat generation etc. Effect of the building orientation, cross ventilation and special architectural aspects such as courtyards, grill design etc were evaluated using the same model. Hourly dry bulb temperature, wet bulb temperature, humidity level and solar irradiation level of six selected locations of the two buildings throughout the day were taken to validate the model. Finally, field study was carried out based on ASHRAE 55 standards with 50 selected occupants in each building. Obtained results from the field study were used to derive the human sensational scale using Predictive Mean Vote (PMV) index, which agrees with the results obtained by the LMT model.