Cooltek House in Malaysia

2011 ◽  
Vol 224 ◽  
pp. 120-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ismail Muhammad Azzam ◽  
Abdul Rashid Fahanim

Currently, there is a distinct lack of innovative approaches to designing and building houses in Malaysia that could overcome the harsh climatic conditions to achieve thermal comfort. At the same time, demand for residential air-conditioning units has skyrocketed due to the lifestyle expectations of home buyers, the low prices of the units and the very low national residential electricity tariff. Most existing and new houses are not designed to be air-conditioned properly due to poor building material selections and endemic construction practices. These houses are not sealed and are thermally inefficient. Besides looking back to the indigenous passive solar design strategies, new design paradigms have to be explored and promoted for the benefit of all. One innovative approach that has been well-developed and proven successful is the Cooltek concept which was first used at a private bungalow in Melaka, Malaysia. The overarching principle of this concept is to reverse the role of the building envelope of colder climates from keeping the heat inside the building to keeping the heat out of the building which could provide a more conducive indoor environment for air-conditioning in order to reduce the indoor temperature and the relative humidity with minimal use of electricity. This paper describes the Cooltek concept and a case study in detail and how the concept works.

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 530
Author(s):  
Abdullah Abdulhameed Bagasi ◽  
John Kaiser Calautit ◽  
Abdullah Saeed Karban

This paper reviewed related research works and developments on the traditional architectural element “mashrabiya” focusing on its history, design and structure, typology, and functions in hot climates. Moreover, the paper assessed the effect of the traditional mashrabiya on the indoor thermal environment and thermal comfort in a selected case study building. For this purpose, two similar rooms were investigated in a selected historic building with abundant mashrabiyas located in the Makkah Region, specifically in Old Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The field tests were conducted during a typical hot summer month with two different configurations. The study demonstrated that opening the mashrabiya allowed more airflow into the room during the day and reduced the indoor temperature by up to 2.4 °C as compared to the closed mashrabiya. Besides, the building envelope played an important role in preventing the high fluctuation of the indoor air temperature, where the fluctuation of the rooms air temperature ranged between 2.1 °C and 4.2 °C compared to the outdoor temperature which recorded a fluctuation between 9.4 °C and 16 °C. The data presented here can be used for the future development of the mashrabiya concept and the potential incorporation with passive cooling methods to improve its design according to the requirements of modern buildings in hot climates. Moreover, further studies and tests on mashrabiyas under different climatic conditions are required. Also, the different strategies or materials can be incorporated with mashrabiyas in order to improve its thermal performance.


2013 ◽  
Vol 368-370 ◽  
pp. 599-602 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Hung ◽  
Hsien Te Lin ◽  
Yu Chung Wang

This study focuses on the performance of air conditioning design at the Dazhi Cultural Center and uses a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation to discuss the differences in wind velocity and ambient indoor temperature between all-zone air conditioning design and stratified air conditioning design. The results have strong implications for air conditioning design and can improve the indoor air quality of assembly halls.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 1861
Author(s):  
Neveen Y. Azmy ◽  
Rania E. Ashmawy

Windows play a significant role as they largely influence the energy load. Although there are many studies on the energy-efficient windows design, there is still a lack in information about the mutual impact of windows’ size, position and orientation on the energy loads. In this paper, the effect of different window positions and orientations on the energy consumption in a typical room in an administrative building that is located in the hot climatic conditions of Cairo city, Egypt is considered. This case study has been modeled and analyzed to achieve good environmental performance for architectural space, as well as assessing its impact on the amount of natural lighting required by using the Energy Plus program. The study concludes that the WWR (Window Wall Ratio) 20% square north-oriented upper  opening consumes 25% lower energy than the rectangular 3:1 opening in the lower west-oriented façade. The upper openings are the highest in terms of light intensity, as they cover about 50% of the room area. The WWR 30% rectangular north-oriented upper 3:1 opening consumes 29% lower energy than the rectangular lower 3:1opening in the façade. Regarding light intensity, the upper openings are the best for natural lighting as the light covers more than 60% of the room area.                                                                                                                                                               


2012 ◽  
Vol 193-194 ◽  
pp. 45-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen Pei Sung ◽  
Yi Rou Chi ◽  
Lin Jun Hong ◽  
Yu Kuang Zhao

How to maintain a comfortable indoor environment without excessively relying on mechanical HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) is a target to be pursued for future living requirements. The results obtained in this research show that in an office environment, the room temperature monitored during winter is close to the comfortable temperature; however, the office occupants feel that a little warmer indoor temperature is comfort. During summer, the occupants prefer cooler temperature than the comfort temperature. Additionally, Taiwan is located in sub-tropical region with hot and humid summer. Even if the room temperature is maintained in a comfortable range, the occupants still feel not so comfortable because of high humidity. Hence, reducing the room temperature below 23 °C is inferred to make occupants feel comfortable. Questionnaire survey indicates that ventilation is preferred by 30.9% of the respondents for summer and 43.3% for winter as an effective method to improve the stuffy indoor air.


2014 ◽  
Vol 501-504 ◽  
pp. 2282-2287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Hang Liao ◽  
Wei Lu ◽  
Lie Pan

The performance of a solar-driven air-cooled ejector refrigeration system using ammonia as refrigerant with rated cooling capacity of 10.5kW was analyzed for air-conditioning purpose. The cooling capacity of the proposed system increases with the rising of indoor temperature and enhancement of solar irradiance, while decreases with the rising of outdoor temperature. The COP has similar changing trend with that of the cooling capacity except that it increases rapidly with the enhancement of solar irradiance firstlyand then become stable by and large after solar irradiance exceeding a certain value. The cooling capacity is 6.3~52kW and the COP 0.06~0.11 under the normal operating conditions with indoor temperature over 27, outdoor temperature below 38°C and solar irradiance surpassing 500 W/m2. The proposed system can match the climatic conditions in air-conditioning season of Nanning, a typical city in hot summer and warm winter region.


2012 ◽  
Vol 174-177 ◽  
pp. 1722-1725
Author(s):  
Ana Maria Dabija

Geographically, Romania is situated in the continental temperate zone of Europe, with severe climatic conditions: the winters are very cold (with temperatures that can reach, in some provinces or in some days, values of -200C to –350C) and the summers very hot (in the past few years temperatures were between +38 - +400C, for weeks). Not only the air temperature gradient is broad (75 ÷ 800C), but as a consequence the temperature difference on the horizontal surfaces may rise to as much as 1000C. Romania is situated between parallels 430 and 480. In a very simple/simplistic approach, it can be considered as being half way between the North Pole and the Equator, therefore the constructive components can be identified in both the Northern architecture and the Southern one. The traditional architecture aims to provide a comfortable indoor environment both during the winter and the summer season, by using local building materials. Along with the building conformation, given by the local conditions (climate, earth, building materials), the peoples interventions (from religion to fashion) are also determinant. The paper presents some building principles, constructive systems and materials that transcend traditional architecture, in Romania.


2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 889-902 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manoj Singh ◽  
Sadhan Mahapatra ◽  
Jacques Teller

Indoor thermal environment monitoring has been done in 20 residential buildings of Liege city followed by questionnaire based comfort survey amongst the occupants of 85 houses in order to record their preference and expectations about indoor thermal environment in winter and spring season. It is found from the analysis that change of glazing has a minimum or even sometimes an adverse effect on the existing indoor environment due to the absence of proper insulation of the rest of the building envelope. It is observed that in winter there is a sudden drop in indoor temperature and also overheating in summer. This is due to unplanned installation of glazing which actually increases the fenestration area ratio leading to higher indoor temperature fluctuation and causes discomfort. It is also important that the occupant?s preference and expectations as well as overall assessment of indoor environment needs to be consider towards energy efficiency improvement.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annika Hinze ◽  
Jörgen Lantz ◽  
Sharon R. Hill ◽  
Rickard Ignell

Future anthropogenic climate change is predicted to impact sensory-driven behaviors. Building on recent improvements in computational power and tracking technology, we have developed a versatile climate-controlled wind tunnel system, in which to study the effect of climate parameters, including temperature, precipitation, and elevated greenhouse gas levels, on odor-mediated behaviors in insects. To establish a baseline for future studies, we here analyzed the host-seeking behavior of the major malaria vector mosquito, Anopheles gambiae sensu strico, to human odor and carbon dioxide (CO2), under tightly controlled climatic conditions, and isolated from potential background contamination by the presence of an experimenter. When presented with a combination of human foot odor and CO2 (case study I), mosquitoes engaged in faster crosswind flight, spent more time in the filamentous odor plume and targeted the odor source more successfully. In contrast, female An. gambiae s. s. presented with different concentrations of CO2 alone, did not display host-seeking behavior (case study II). These observations support previous findings on the role of human host-associated cues in host seeking and confirm the role of CO2 as a synergist, but not a host-seeking cue on its own. Future studies are aimed at investigating the effect of climate change on odor-mediated behavior in mosquitoes and other insects. Moreover, the system will be used to investigate detection and processing of olfactory information in various behavioral contexts, by providing a fine-scale analysis of flight behavior.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2069 (1) ◽  
pp. 012006
Author(s):  
A Kabore ◽  
W Maref ◽  
C O Plamondon

Abstract This document is a case study of hemp-based materials integrated into the building envelope for African and North American’s applications. The objective is to evaluate the energy performance of hemp concrete for construction in Montreal, Canada, where heating predominates and in Dori, Burkina Faso, where air conditioning predominates. The effect of thermal and hygrothermal comfort of hemp concrete, glass wool, cement block and compressed earth brick walls were simulated to quantify the benefits on overheating during the hottest months for the city of Dori and the risk of mould growth in the walls of the building in winter for the city of Montreal.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Borro ◽  
Lorenzo Mazzei ◽  
Massimiliano Raponi ◽  
Prisco Piscitelli ◽  
Alessandro Miani ◽  
...  

Background: About 15 million people worldwide were affected by the Sars-Cov-2 infection, which already caused 600,000 deaths. This virus is mainly transmitted through exhalations from the airways of infected persons, so that Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems might play a role in spreading the infection in indoor environments. Methods: We modelled the role of HVAC systems in the diffusion of the contagion through a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations of cough at the Vatican State childrens hospital Bambino Gesu. Both waiting rooms and hospital rooms were modeled as indoor scenarios. A specific Infection-Index parameter was used to estimate the amount of contaminated air inhaled by each person present in the simulated indoor scenarios. The potential role of exhaust air ventilation systems placed above the coughing patients mouth was also assessed. Results: Our CFD-based simulations show that HVAC air-flow remarkably enhance infected droplets diffusion in the whole indoor environment within 25 seconds from the cough event, despite the observed dilution of saliva particles containing the virus. In the waiting room simulation, Infection-Index parameter increases the faster the higher the HVAC airflow. Greater flows of air conditioning correspond to greater diffusion of the infected droplets. The proper use of Local Exhaust Ventilation systems (LEV) simulated in the hospital room was associated to a complete reduction of infected droplets spreading from the patient s mouth in the first 0.5 seconds following the cough event. In the hospital room, the use of LEV system completely reduced the index computed for the patient hospitalized at the bed next to the spreader, with a decreased possibility of contagion. Conclusions: CFD-based simulations for indoor environment can be useful to optimize air conditioning flow and to predict the contagion risk both in hospitals/ambulatories and in other public/private settings.


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