Application And Optimization Of Double Skin Fa?ade In Hot And Humid Climates

Architects welcome double skin fa?ade(DSF)due to its aesthetic quality.The performance of DSF is influenced by both the climates and the design parameters.The first DSF was designed to prevent cold weather and strong winds.Nowadays,the application of DSF under different climates has been discussed in many previous studies.However,little work has been done on the behaviour of DSF in hot and humid climates.Therefore,this paper aimed to extend the application into the hot and humid climate and check its performance.Guangzhou was selected as the sample city in this thesis.The design of DSF is complicated since its performance depends on the properties of various parameters.In this study,rather than explore how each parameter influences the performance,the design was evaluated from the overall aspect.The energy consumption,thermal performance and thermal comfort of the building was the focus to analyze.Since DSF contributes to introducing natural lighting into the occupied area,daylighting analysis was included as well to make the study more comprehensive.The other aim of this study was to optimize the DSF design,focusing on exploring what types of design parameter combination could make the DSF system exert its advantages better.Therefore,optimization process based on the concept of “Pareto Front” was conducted,with the objective of decreasing the energy consumption and the discomfort hour.Common features of the optimal options were summarized to provide guidance.This study was based on Design Builder software simulation.A case study and validation of a building with DSF in Argentina was conducted.Then,the single skin facade(SSF)base model and DSF base model were built to compare in terms of energy consumption,thermal performance,thermal comfort,and daylighting.Conclusion could be drawn that it was possible to expand the DSF application to a hot and humid climate.Results showed that the DSF base model was energy-saving compared with the SSF model.Besides,after the optimization process,the optimal option saved 17.2% to 28.7% cooling energy than the DSF base model,which verified the point that reasonable combination of the design parameters played an important role in enhancing the performance of the DSF system.