INVESTIGATION ON BUILDING ENERGY PERFORMANCE BY THE HEAT GAIN THROUGH ENVELOPES

Abstract

Thermal design optimisation of building envelope is one of the key pillars to achieve building energy conservation. In this regard, it is essential to have a method to evaluate the thermal performance of building envelopes. In the tropical regions of Southeast Asia, within the scope of improving the energy efficiency of buildings, the ETTV (envelope thermal transfer value) method is widely implemented as a mandatory or semi-mandatory approach to ensure compliance of building energy standards. However, to make further gains in building energy savings, there is a need to formulate an enhanced method to evaluate the envelope thermal performance in support of standards compliance and building envelope design. In this thesis, an enhanced indicator of envelope thermal performance, named operative envelope transfer value (OETV), is proposed. With the variation of microclimate, occupant behaviour and envelope design, the OETV method shows better performance than the ETTV method and is proven to be a simple and reliable method for envelope thermal performance evaluation.