Brunetti, G.L.
Year:
2008
Bibliographic info:
29th AIVC Conference " Advanced building ventilation and environmental technology for addressing climate change issues", Kyoto, Japan, 14-16 October 2008

The present research was aimed at the definitionof a design hypothesis for the construction of apharmaceutical warehouse in a hot humid areaof southern Sudan. The candidate hypotheseswere based on an existing prefabricated singlestoreypitched-roof steel stiuctural systems 18 mlong and 9 m wide and had to be constsuctible ata low cost and using local materials. At climaticlevel, the goal was that daily d.b. temperaturesnot exceeding 27-28 "C were reached bypassive of very low-energy means, which wasnot easy to achieve in the given conditions. Aconstruction hypothesis was made by the authoradopting the following solutions: a) masonry forthe walls, insulated from the outside andprotected by rainscreens; b) a heavy concretefloor insulated from the outside and suspendedupon a ventilated cavity; c) a ventilated andinsulated metal-sheet pitched roof. Threepassive cooling strategies based of the describedsolution have been tested by the author throughthe use of the ESP-r software tool: the firstexploiting nightly stack effect ventilation, thesecond based on forced night-only fanventilation, and the third based on night topdownventilation activated by roof radiantcooling. The second and third hypotheses havebeen found to meet the thermal requirement andthe second one was at last selected, because itseemed to guarantee lower construction costsand be less dependent from weather conditions.