To be successful in sustainable building design, architects must consider energy
efficient design strategies in the early design stage. Unfortunately, many architects still
rely on simplified analysis, synthesis techniques, and historical examples. Although,
building energy simulations are becoming more common in the design of buildings,
architects rarely use simulation in the early design stage.
The "Bioclimatic" charts have been used in the early design stage to define
potential building design strategies to achieve indoor thermal comfort. Currently, many
architects use the Givoni-Milne bioclimatic design chart (Milne and Givoni, 1979),
which was developed based on principle reasoning and heuristics. There have been many
attempts to develop computerized programs to further the bioclimatic analysis; however,
there have been very limited efforts to test and evaluate the design strategies of the chart
using simulations of a thermostatically-controlled building.
Therefore, the purpose of this research is to promote comfortable buildings that
reduce energy use through appropriate building design strategies. The objectives of the
research are to develop a more accurate bioclimatic chart for a thermostaticallycontrolled
residence by testing and evaluating the Givoni-Milne bioclimatic chart. The
analysis is performed with DOE-2.1e program (Winkelmann, 1993) and TMY2 weather
data (Marion and Urban, 1995) for several climates. To achieve these objectives, four
main tasks were accomplished: 1) investigate the Givoni-Milne Bioclimatic Chart using
representative weather data from several climates, 2) analyze and modify the design
strategy boundaries using DOE-2 program and TMY2 weather data to simulate the effects of varied conditions of a thermostatically-controlled residence in different
climates, 3) compare these new design strategy boundaries to the original Givoni-Milne
design strategy boundaries, and 4) develop general guidelines for the new bioclimatic
chart.
In summary, there were some differences in the results from the Givoni-Milne
bioclimatic chart and the DOE-2 simulation results. These results imply that without
further modification, the G-M Chart may have only a limited use for a thermostaticallycontrolled
residence. Therefore, to improve the usefulness of the bioclimatic chart the
new bio-climatic chart for choosing design strategies for a thermostatically-controlled
residence in the hot-humid climate of Houston, Texas, was developed. This new
bioclimatic chart for a thermostatically-controlled residence will be a useful tool for
architects and engineers in the early design stage. Similar versions of the new
bioclimatic for other climates could then be developed.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/85782 |
Date | 10 October 2008 |
Creators | Visitsak, Sopa |
Contributors | Haberl, Jeff S. |
Publisher | Texas A&M University |
Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
Language | en_US |
Detected Language | English |
Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
Format | electronic, born digital |
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