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.
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ZEMCH 2015 | International Conference | Bari - Lecce, Italy