Assessment of utilizing natural ventilation in Beirut residential buildings for longer comfort hours throughout the year -

Abstract

This thesis examines the effectiveness of natural ventilation in Beirut for the purpose of extending comfort periods within living and sleeping zones of the residential buildings. A field survey is conducted through a questionnaire to estimate the common window opening and degree profiles practiced by Beirut occupants. A base case model representing a typical residential apartment located in Beirut was then adopted in IES (Integrated Environmental Solutions) software, validated by experimentation through monitoring simulated and measured data indoor, and then used to evaluate typical wall layouts and building materials available locally. The simulation results verify the feasibility of using natural ventilation in Beirut, using any of the locally available materials, with highest comfort hours displayed in fall and spring seasons in both bedroom and living room. The simulation results also suggest an optimal wall configuration of higher insulation and capacitance building envelope material comprised of a 5 cm (0.16 ft.) layer of insulating strawboard sandwiched between a 2 cm × 10 cm (0.06 ft. x 0.32 ft.) wall made of masonry units consisting of Hempcrete, for both living zone and bedroom zone, achieving a yearly thermal comfort of 62percent in the bedroom and 58percent in the living room. The thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter 1 provides a general introduction of the Natural Ventilation technique. Starting with a brief overview of the energy consumption rates, the need for Natural Ventilation method to increase comfort and decrease energy consumption is addressed. An investigation of natural ventilation technique, along with the work done on it, on what it depends and its practice is presented. Next, the problem formulation and the need to apply natural ventilation in Lebanon are presented, along with the objective of studying the effectiveness of natural ventilation in Beirut, as a solution for high energy consumption and at the same time to provide Indoor Air Quality, using different local building mater