The Effect of Courtyard Ratio on Energy Consumption and Thermal Comfort in a Primary Governmental School in New Assiut City, Egypt

Abstract

The building and spaces design have a great impact on indoor temperature and energy consumption. In Egypt, the general authority of educational buildings (GAEB), which is responsible for designing schools, uses the same typical prototypes across the country despite the diversity of climatic conditions. The main objective of this study is to investigate the effect of courtyard ratio (H/W) on student thermal comfort and school annual energy consumption in order to find out the optimum ratio for school courtyard in one of the typical governmental schools with an E-shaped design. A building simulation model was created using Design Builder software. The model was calibrated using actual measured weather data for the year 2014. A simulation study was carried out for twenty different design scenarios. Two stages for the simulation were performed; the first stage studied the effect of courtyard ratio (H/W) on indoor thermal comfort while using natural ventilation and the second stage studied the influence of using HVAC inside school classrooms on the annual energy consumption. The results showed that high change happened for annual energy consumption when changing the courtyard width from 10 to 5 m, and less change happens when changing the width from 15 to 10 m. The lowest rate of energy consumption is achieved for courtyard ratio which equals 1.5 with annual energy consumption which equals 13.5 kWh/m²/year. There is significant change in PMV values from 5 m courtyard width to 10 m courtyard, while no change is observed in case of 15, 20, 25 m courtyard width.