The Study of Thermal Performance of Roof and the Impact of Indoor Conditions on Thermal Environment in Changhua County Fang Yuan Elementary Classrooms

Abstract

Because of making a more comfortable and convenient life, human beings have already consumed alarge number of natural resources since the Industrial Revolution. In order to support the quality of life, people need to use more energy than ever. People create more greenhouse gas when they use more energy. That will speed up the climate change. It is important to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide for retarding greenhouse effect. Buildings consume a high proportion of energy for air-conditioner and lights. Building envelope can reduce heat gain of a building, so thermal performance of building envelope is crucial factor for keeping indoor thermal environment comfortable. Because the roof can receive a lot of heat energy from the sun, the roof insulation is an important issue to study. There are two objectives in this study. The first objective of this study is to investigate the thermal performance of classrooms' roofs in Changhua County Fang Yuan elementary school during winter and summer by using infrared thermography. Infrared thermography is a fast and non-contact method to detect temperature distributions on the surface. According to thermal images of two classrooms with different designs of roof, we discover the roof with passive cooling designs by adopting EPS, trellis, ventilated layer and roof greenery has better thermal performance. The second objective is to evaluate the impact of different indoor conditions (temperature of internal surface of roof, numbers of open window, etc.) on the indoor thermal environment of the library. We analyze the data by using stepwise multiple regression method. According to the result of analysis, we find that ＂adequate open windows＂ and ＂temperature of internal surface of roof＂ can effect the indoor thermal environment significantly. In summary, the roof insulation and natural ventilation are important to indoor climate.