Journal of Engineering and Applied Science
FACULTY OF ENGINEERING, CAIRO UNIVERSITY
Volume 62, April 2015, Pages 101 - 118
Mohamed ElDabosy, Osama Farag and Wael Moustafa
1 April 2015
Abstract
Zero-energy building, green building and sustainable design are worldwide concepts in architecture, and many trends also are focus on energy conservation. Passive design is preferred choice concerning energy issues and passive techniques are recommended from green building councils. In desert and semi-desert regions, passive design faces problem regarding human comfort ensuring. Obtaining good daylight and visual environment may affect performance of thermal environment and have a good thermal environment may affect natural ventilation performance. This research aims to study the impact of passive techniques on human comfort. The research examine domains of window sizes, ventilation type and window shading for a modular unit using simulation programs - Autodesk simulation CFD and Ecotect analysis-under hot day conditions in order to determine its performance. The study shows the passive techniques ability of changing indoor environment to a considerable extent, and proofs that using of a passive technique has numerous impacts, and without accurate calculations in early design stage it may have negative effect on some indoor environmental quality parameters. The research recommended developing innovative passive strategies and low-energy controlling systems with use of integrated design approach in order to get more comfort indoor spaces.