Probabilistic analysis of passive cooling strategies and occupant behaviour for improving the summer comfort conditions in apartments of the Santiago real estate market
(2012)
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- Authors
- Supervisors
- De Herde, André
- Abstract
- (en) Overheating appears as a recurrent problem in apartments of the real estate market of Santiago de Chile, since their architectural design frequently does not incorporate passive cooling techniques and some occupants may not be completely aware of their impact on the thermal comfort. This situation is encouraged by a Thermal Regulation that allows extensive single glazing surfaces in the building envelope of the apartments in Santiago and that does not propose any criteria or recommendations for limiting the risk of overheating during the cooling period. In addition to this, the real estate market has practically not been studied in terms of the impact on the thermal comfort and could not be considered as correctly represented by the building typologies designed in light of the Thermal Regulation. To deal with this entire scenario, we proposed the application of passive cooling strategies with the aim of obtaining adequate conditions of summer comfort and avoiding the use of air conditioning in apartments of the real estate market of Santiago. In this sense, this paper establishes the definition of apartment typologies through a multidimensional approach to market disaggregation, a sensitivity analysis with the aim of assessing the possibilities to reduce the risk of overheating by means of passive cooling techniques and two questionnaire surveys related to occupant behaviour with respect to natural ventilation and the interest and to the willingness to purchase solar protection devices. The results obtained suggest that the best performance in terms of summer comfort can be obtained from the combination of diverse variables that would be significant in respect to the reduction of the risk of overheating. In this sense, the presence of solar protection devices and night ventilation constitute very significant input parameters, especially with respect to living rooms and bedrooms, respectively. However, the favourable results obtained for night ventilation should not be taken lightly, since it was observed that a non-negligible amount of occupants are not opening windows during night-time. Therefore, it appears to be an important challenge not only for the public policies, but also for real estate developers related to the use of this passive cooling technique. At the same time, it is important that the industry is able to effectively communicate the advantages, attributes and technical aspects of solar protection devices in comparison to other less effective solar control measures. Finally, the approach proposed for this thesis not only allows introducing improvements in terms of summer thermal conditions according to the specific requirements of the apartment typologies identified, but also suggests the integration of a series of attributes, such as the incorporation of solar protection devices as part of the architectural design (and not as a post-occupancy decision), with the aim of being developed at the level of their value chain.
- Affiliations
UCLouvain SST/LAB - Louvain research institute for Landscape, Architecture, Built environment
Citations
Encinas Pino, F. (2012). Probabilistic analysis of passive cooling strategies and occupant behaviour for improving the summer comfort conditions in apartments of the Santiago real estate market. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/208039