Thermal performance of cavities in 3DPC building façades

In the quest for sufficient and comfortable housing in South Africa, attention to building orientation and thermal transmittance principles has significantly improved thermal performance in local houses. Thermal simulation and monitoring of houses in the Joe Slovo Phase Three development in Cape Town confirms improved performance by solar radiation blockage and shading. This paper simulates the thermal performance of a housing unit in this development. The house was instrumented with thermocouples, and monitored from March to December 2013 by Sustainable Energy Africa in collaboration with the National Department of Human Settlements. Sustainable Energy Africa reported significant improvement when compared to a nearby traditional Reconstruction and Development Programme house that had been monitored during the same period. With the benefit of the monitored thermal data, complete drawings, and specification details of the Joe Slovo Phase Three unit, the current research modelled and calibrated a simulation model in DesignBuilder. DesignBuilder was selected given its accreditation status for Green Star Rating of buildings in South Africa. An additional motivation for investigating this unit was the availability of recorded weather data from the nearby Cape Town International Airport, captured in the DesignBuilder climate data base for 2013, which was assumed relevant in lieu of complete weather station data measured at the location of the housing unit. The study aimed to simulate the monitored temperatures in the house with acceptable agreement, and to investigate further potential improvement in occupant thermal comfort by alternative 3D-printed concrete walling developed by the authors. Systematic finite element analysis (FEA) iteratively solved cavity radiation and convection in wall cavities to calibrate thermal transmittance parameters for DesignBuilder. The FEA results acceptably simulated temperatures monitored in this physical wall experiment. The calibrated DesignBuilder model simulated the indoor temperatures of the monitored house with acceptable agreement, and predicted significant improvement in occupant thermal comfort if the walls were 3D-printed with a particular cross-sectional design.