Assessing cooling energy reduction potentials by retrofitting traditional cavity walls into passively ventilated cavity
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Assessing cooling energy reduction potentials by retrofitting traditional cavity walls into passively ventilated cavity walls
1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA 2. The Durham School of Architecture Engineering and Construction, University of Nebraska Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA
Abstract
Keywords
A major roadblock in achieving substantial building energy reduction is the low performance of old buildings that account for a significant portion of the building energy consumption. Finding low-cost energy retrofit solutions that do not disrupt occupants’ daily life during the retrofitting is
low-cost energy retrofit,
the key to successful building energy retrofit initiatives. In this paper, a novel and low-cost exterior wall retrofitting solution is introduced, and its performance in reducing space cooling load was
stack effect,
quantitatively evaluated to demonstrate its feasibility and effectiveness. The primary goal of this paper is to provide a quantitative assessment of the cooling-energy savings potential by using the proposed new wall system. The intended retrofitting targets are the large amount of existing cavity-wall buildings located in hot climate regions. The quantification of the before-after heat-flux reduction was conducted through a 3-dimensional steady-state low turbulence computational
Research Article
Ri Na1 (), Zhigang Shen2
building envelope, cavity wall, space cooling energy reduction, CFD
Article History Received: 07 July 2020 Revised: 23 September 2020 Accepted: 28 October 2020
fluid dynamics (CFD) model, which is validated by benchmarking its prediction against the published experimental case results. The outcomes of the investigation suggest that this simple
© Tsinghua University Press and
low-cost solution has great potentials in reducing buildings’ summer cooling load in hot climate
Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany,
regions. The applicability of this solution is not limited to retrofitting existing buildings. New energy-efficient building designs can also adopt this solution in their envelope systems.
part of Springer Nature 2020
1
Introduction
E-mail: [email protected]
Indoor/Outdoor Airflow and Air Quality
Nearly 10% of total electricity is consumed by building space cooling in the U.S. Space cooling also drives the peak electricity demand in many regions (Denholm et al. 2012). Notable improvements in energy performance have been achieved in new buildings through adopting better building envelope materials and construction methods, more efficient appliances and lighting fixtures, and renewable energies (McGraw-Hill Construction 2010). However, increasing energy efficiency of the large number of old buildings in the U.S. through cost-effective energy retrofits remains a challenge. Cost-effective retrofit solutions need to be developed in order to reduce overall and peak electricity consumption of buildings’ space cooling. A critical component in reducing space-cooling load is to reduce the heat-flux through
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