DOI: 10.5176/2301-394X_ACE14.61
Authors: Nur Alia Mohamad Omar and Sharifah Fairuz Syed Fadzil
Abstract:
Effective building design in hot and humid climates often calls for careful consideration when placing glazed openings on the building envelope. Glass windows offer potential solutions to provide natural lighting and ventilation; however, inadequate planning of its placement, treatment and/or shading could risk causing a ‘greenhouse effect’ inside the building and subsequent overheating of the building’s interior. In such cases, the severity of the problem can be measured by using infrared (IR) thermography. This paper presents the results of a field study conducted on the exterior surfaces of a building in George Town, Penang. The field study involved time-sequential thermography of the building’s main elevations and its verification using simultaneously recorded close-range measurements taken with an IR thermometer over the course of a single fine weather day. Results show that readings taken from the IR thermal camera and the IR thermometer were consistent with one another. It was also shown that the glass windows retained heat for a longer period of time than the walls itself during the evening, indicating a significant amount of trapped heat within the building’s interior.
Keywords: IR thermography; surface temperature; hot-humid climate; tropics
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