Opportunities of Light Steel Framing towards thermal comfort in southern European climates: Long-term monitoring and comparison with the heavyweight construction

Abstract

Abstract In a climate such as the southern European, heavyweight buildings have been associated with improved indoor comfort conditions. The heavyweight reinforced concrete and brick masonry construction is the most widespread and technically known constructive system. However, alternative lightweight systems have been gaining market share, such as the Light Steel Framing (LSF). Experimental research focused on the comparison between the two constructive systems is yet scarce. The present work intends to focus on this research gap by analysing and comparing the performance of the two constructive systems in terms of indoor thermal environment and thermal comfort, considering an intermittent residential occupation. To this end, a robust experimental campaign was carried out, based on the construction and monitoring of two identical experimental test cells, differing only in the constructive system. The test cells are located in Portugal and were monitored for one full year. It is shown that the LSF constructive system presents higher daily indoor temperature fluctuation and more expressive peak values, following closer the outdoor dry-bulb temperature variations. The obtained results also evidence the opportunities of the LSF constructive system in terms of indoor thermal comfort, presenting, in general terms, a more promising scenario on the performed annual analyses.