Optimizing the thermal performance of residential buildings in Jordan

Abstract

This work investigates the influence of building form, natural ventilation, and window shading passive strategies on the thermal performance and thermal comfort of three residential building forms, namely rectangular, L-shape, and U-shape, in the hot-dry summer in Amman, Jordan. The thermal performance of buildings is studied using indoor air temperature, and the thermal comfort is evaluated according to ASHRAE-55 and Fanger’s models. The buildings’ models are designed using the SketchUp plugin OpenStudio and then plugged into the EnergyPlus simulator. It is obtained that when natural ventilation and shading devices are considered together, the indoor air temperature is notably dropped up to 8.85 °C in the daytime and 12.70 °C at nighttime, which improves the thermal comfort of all building forms. Generally, rectangular building exhibits the best thermal behavior under optimum conditions. U-shape presents the best thermal behavior for the primary conditions, and it records the lowest out-of-comfort percentage time during the day and achieves the highest comfortable percentage after considering the window’s area control.