An Analysis of Thermal Comfort for Indoor Environment of the New Assiut Housing in Egypt

Climate considerations are essential dimensions in the assessment of thermal comfort and indoor environments inside Egyptian housing. The primary aim of this paper is to analyze the indoor environment of new housing in the new city of Assiut in the Southern Upper Egypt zone, in order to evaluate its thermal environment and determine the acceptable indoor operative temperatures. The psychrometric charts for ASHRAE Standard 55 and ACS used in this study would facilitate an overall representation of the climate in one of the hottest months in the summer season. This study helps to understand and deal with this problem and work on a passive cooling ventilation strategy in these contexts in future studies. The results that demonstrated the indoor temperature is too high, ranges between 31°C to 40°C in different natural ventilation strategies. This causes the indoor environment to be far from the optimum comfort operative temperature of ACS except when using air conditioners. Finally, this study is considered a base for developing a new system using natural ventilation with passive cooling strategies.





References:
[1] M. Zimmermann, H.-J. Althaus, A. Haas, "Benchmarks for Sustainable Construction: A Contribution to Develop a Standard”, Energy and Buildings, vol. 37, 2005, pp1147-1157.
[2] IEA, "Promoting Energy Efficiency Investments” , Available online at : http://www.iea.org/publications/free new Desc.asp?PUBS ID=2009.
[3] R. El-Shamery, "The Impact of Climatic Conditions on the Urban Desert Communities in Upper Egypt [Assiut City As an Example of the New Applied”, Master Thesis (unpublished work style), Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Assiut University, 2006.
[4] M. M. A. Osman, "Evaluating and Enhancing Design for Natural Ventilation in Walk-Up Public Housing Blocks in the Egyptian Desert Climatic Design Region”, Ph.D Thesis (Unpublished Work Style), Dundee School of Architecture, university of Dundee, 2011.
[5] W. Sheta, S. Sharples, "A Building Simulation Sustainability Analysis to Assess Dwelling in a New Cairo Development”, Fourth National Conference of IBPSA-USA, New York, 2010, pp94-101.
[6] S.M. Robaa, "Thermal Human Comfort in Egypt”, Journal of Meteorology, 28, Issue 283, 2003, pp 359-371.
[7] HBRC. Code: ECP 306-2005, "The Egyptian Code for Enhancing Energy Use in Buildings” (unpublished work style), 1. Cairo, Egypt: Housing and Building Research Center (HBRC) 2006.
[8] B. Givoni, "Comfort, Climate Analysis and Building Design Guidelines”, Energy and building, vol.18, 1992, pp11-23.
[9] ASHRAE, ASHRAE Standard 5, "Thermal Environmental Conditions for Human Occupancy”, ASHRAE, Atlanta, USA: America Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc, 2004.
[10] AV. Arundel, EM. Sterling, JH. Biggin, TD. Sterling, "Indirect health Effects of Relative Humidity Indoor Environments”, Environmental Health Perspectives,.65, 1986, pp351-61.
[11] R. J. de Dear, Gail S. B: (2002) "Thermal Comfort in Naturally Ventilated Buildings, Revisions to ASHRAE Standard 55”, Energy and Buildings, vol. 34, 1986, pp549–561.
[12] G.Z.Brown and M. Dekay, "Sun, Wind & Light: Architectural Design Strategies (Book Style)”, ISBN 0-471-346877-5, Second Edition, John Wiley & sons, Inc, 2001, pp.54-55.