Gustavo Zen de Figueiredo Neves

Thermal Response to Heat in Buildings with Green Covers for Tropical Climate: Green Facades and Green Roofs

The main aims of this paper were to study and demonstrate the benefits the plant systems can provide indoors in a critical heat day. This study proposed an experimental method to try to understand the thermal response to heat of four different systems: a prototype called control (no vegetation) and three with different combinations of vegetation (green roofs and green facades) installed in a tropical climate region. The experiments were developed in four test cells with dimensions 2.0 m × 2.50 m × 2.71 m. Measurements of internal surface temperatures and internal air temperatures were collected with the use of specific equipment, a data logger (CR1000, Campbell Scientific Inc.), connected with two multiplexers 32 channels (416AM Campbell Scientific Inc.). Data were recorded over a year and a critical day heat was selected, which was September 24, 2015.The results show that the use of plant systems in buildings establishes a passive technique in reducing energy consumption because of the high incidence of summer solar radiation which is reduced and simultaneously, it maintains thermal internal conditions more pleasant than external ones, because of the best thermal behaviour, which was observed in the test cell with vegetation on both roofs and facades. The biggest difference between maximum internal air temperatures registered was 2 °C.

Thermal Behaviour in Buildings with Green Covers Combined with Natural Ventilation, Green Facades and Green Roofs

The main aim of this paper was to study the influence of ventilation during a typical experimental day, in the internal air temperature as well as in internal surface temperatures under the conditions of the outer environment, using an experimental method which allows a comparison of the thermal performance between four cell tests: a prototype called control (no vegetation) and three with different combinations of vegetation (roofs and facades) installed in a region of tropical climate. The experiments were developed in four test cells with dimensions 2.0 m × 2.50 m × 2.7 m. Measurements of internal surface temperatures and internal air temperatures were collected with the use of specific equipment, a data logger (CR1000, Campbell Scientific Inc.), connected with two multiplexers 32 channels (416AM Campbell Scientific Inc.). Data were recorded over a year and a typical heat day was selected, which was September 24, 2015. The results show that ventilation affects the internal temperature of the air, so that this gets even surpass the external temperature. Regarding surface temperatures, increased temperature, except those which are provided with vegetation, namely, the surfaces which have green walls and green roofs file the lower temperatures. Therefore, we can confirm the ability of vegetation to maintain more pleasant internal conditions compared to the test cells built with conventional materials, thus it can reduce cooling load efficiency.