| dc.description.abstract | The building envelope is one of the most important design parameters for determining how the indoor physical environment relates to thermal comfort, visual comfort, and even occupants’ working productivity. Thus, the building envelope significantly affects the energy usage of a building. In an effort to simultaneously consider and satisfy all of the various indoor comfort requirements, changing climatic conditions can generate conflicting conditions. Acclimated Kinetic Envelope (AKE) is a
notion proposed in this research to address these types of situations.
There have been a number of experimental designs and practices dealing with the potential benefits of AKE. However, there has yet to be a detailed comparison in terms of the various impacts on building energy, indoor comfort, and other human factors, especially in different climates. The general objective of this research was to evaluate AKE’s performance on energy usage and human factors, and compare that information to CEE's in office buildings in four different climatic zones. The research methodology had two key elements: energy simulations and mockup surveys. With respect to energy use, the research employed a parametric simulation to assess building heating and cooling loads, the effects of envelope assemblies, and the overall building energy use related to the two types of envelopes (AKE and CEE). With respect to human factors, the research adopted mockup tests and surveys to evaluate the visual qualities and human responses of the two types of blind systems strategies (AKE and CEE).
This research determined the following: 1) Compared to the other referenced models, AKE technologies significantly reduced the heating and cooling loads and peak demands of buildings, even with regards to designs using highly-insulated glazing and walls, in the representative climates. 2) Kinetic windows played a more significant role in energy saving than other kinetic elements existing in the four representative climates; the savings were approximately twice as large as the savings from highly-insulated glazing. 3) Only cooling-dominated climate installations were able to obtain energy savings by setting up external movable blinds. 4) Mockup survey results showed that
overall satisfaction with the visual quality created by external movable blinds was statistically higher than the satisfaction related to external static blinds. Similar trends were also found in the subjective responses to “Lighting Levels, Lighting Distributions, and Glare Sensation.” | en |
