OA-CC-BY-Elsevier-2012-Lomas.pdf (2.53 MB)
Thermal comfort standards, measured internal temperatures and thermal resilience to climate change of free-running buildings: a case-study of hospital wards
journal contribution
posted on 2013-06-11, 11:35 authored by Kevin LomasKevin Lomas, Renganathan GiridharanIn view of the warming climate, there is increasing concern about the likelihood of overheating inside UK
buildings that are not mechanically cooled. A number of studies are examining this matter, of which the
DeDeRHECC project is one. The recent availability of the UKCP09 future climate data projections has
acted as a stimulus to such work. This paper illustrates how field measurement, thermal modelling and
the generation of current and future typical and extreme weather years, can be used to provide a picture
of the resilience of buildings to climate change. The unified framework for assessing both measurements
and current and future predictions that is offered by the BSEN15251 thermal comfort standard is a crucial
component. The paper focuses on internal temperatures during the day and at night in wards within the
tower building at Addenbrooke’s hospital, which has a hybrid ventilation strategy. The maintenance of
thermal comfort in such spaces is critically important and installing air-conditioning in response to
climate change is expensive and potentially energy intensive. Fans appear to be a simple retrofit measure
that may substantially improve the wards’ resilience to climate change even in extreme years. Whilst
healthcare provides the back cloth, the methodology developed has a much wider utility for assessing
thermal comfort in buildings in the current and future climate of the UK.
Funding
This work was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) [grant number EP/H009612/1].
History
School
- Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering
Citation
LOMAS, K.J. and GIRIDHARAN, R., 2012. Thermal comfort standards, measured internal temperatures and thermal resilience to climate change of free-running buildings: a case-study of hospital wards. Building and Environment, 55, pp.57-72.Publisher
ElsevierVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
Distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence (CC BY): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Publication date
2012Notes
This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Elsevier under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ISSN
0360-1323Publisher version
Language
- en