Increasing efficiency of atriums in hot, arid zones
Date
2019
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Abstract
This research evaluated the efficiency of Atrium in hot, arid regions and investi gated the parameters influencing the total energy consumption of an existing shopping mall
in Dubai, UAE using the IES-VE energy modeling software. The parameters tested included:
Roof profile, Roof ventilation, Number of floors, glazing’s Light to Solar Gain ratio (LSG) and
the Thermal insulation of the building envelope. The impact of using light sensors was also
studied. The light sensors and the roof’s thermal insulation resulted in the highest reduction
of the atrium’s energy, 8.5% and 7.5%, respectively. Increasing the number of floors reduced
the energy consumption by 5% per unit area. The roof profile, external wall’s thermal insula tion and height of the atrium resulted in similar energy reductions of 3.5% each. The external
glazing’s LSG reduced the energy consumption by 3.25% while the roof ventilation resulted in a
reduction of 1.3%. The internal glazing’s LSG did not affect the atrium’s total energy consump tion. An optimal combination of the parameters studies resulted in an energy reduction of
about 20%. Thus, this paper presents the optimal design configuration to reduce the energy
consumption of an atrium located in a hot and arid climate.
ª 2019 Higher Education Press Limited Company. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on
behalf of KeAi. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Description
Keywords
Atrium;
Hot arid;
Energy efficiency;
Computer simulation
Citation
Vethanayagam, Vijayantha (2015) Increasing efficiency of Atriums in Hot Arid Zones. dissertation. The British University in Dubai (BUiD).