Effectiveness of Thermal Inertia in South Mediterranean Climate: Residential Houses

Abstract

This research focuses on annual energy demand, indoor comfort during the summer period and indoor temperature in residential family houses. Buildings in a South Mediterranean climate differ only with respect to building technology: one house may be ‘massive’, the other ‘light’. Simulation has been done using the well-known building simulation program ESP-r from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK.

The research is organised into three stages. In the first stage of the research, models are compared during the summer period assuming residential houses are naturally ventilated and have no cooling system. An investigation searches for a sufficient ventilation strategy able to avoid overheating during occupancy hours. The results of this stage are related to the internal dry-bulb temperature, resultant temperature, temperatures of inside surfaces, air changes per hour, Predicted Mean Vote values and Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied values. In the second part of the research, the annual energy demand is investigated assuming the utilisation of a cooling system in summer and a heating system during winter. In the third part, two similar insulation materials with different density values are compared.