ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 618

Figure 2: low-income housing with iron sheet roofing. 3. Research Methodology Dynamic thermal simulations are conducted in EnergyPlus software programme to assess the current conditions as well as the effects of material alternations on thermal comfort conditions. Prevailing walling methods and materials including adobe, burned bricks, stabilised soil blocks, solid concrete and hollow concrete blocks are simulated for a fixed wall thickness of 200mm. Simulations are also carried out for common roofing types (i.e. iron sheet and thatched). Ten combination scenarios are therefore simulated in total (five walling materials and two roofing systems). Available information in CIBSE Guide A (CIBSE 2015) and in (Perez 2009) are used to define the materials’ properties shown in Table 3. A design air change rate of 10 ACH is considered as the maximum air infiltration in the building. Table 3: Material properties used in the simulations. Thermal Conductivity (W/m.K) Thickness (m) 0.6 0.200 1 0.200 Hollow Concrete Block 0.86 0.200 Solid Concrete Block 1.31 0.200 Stabilised Soil Block 1.1 0.200 Iron sheet roof 37 0.003 Thatched roof 0.07 0.150 Concrete floor 1.31 0.100 Material Adobe Brick Based on the statistical information described above, a 3x3x3m single-roomed house with four occupants was modelled as the representative of low-income housing in urban areas of Uganda. A 2x1m door and a 1x1m single glazed window with effective opening area of 80% were also considered. The occupancy pattern was defined as fully occupied during 6pm-8am and 1 occupant during 8am-6pm. The occupants’ behaviours in terms of opening and closing the windows and doors were also defined as: windows open 6:30am-6:30pm; doors open 7am-8pm (Olweny 1996). For the weather data, Kisumu in Kenya was used as the closest city to Kampala and as there are no available weather data for thermal simulations in Uganda. Similar to Kampala, Kisumu is located on the shore of Lake Victoria and its altitude is almost the same as Kampala. 616 ZEMCH 2015 | International Conference | Bari - Lecce, Italy