Cooling load, reduction of buildings using passive roof options

A model is presented to predict the thermal performance of a building with shading and roof ponds. A computer program is written to calculate hourly cooling load requirements by the numerical solution of the energy balance equation for the building. This simulation is validated for a bare roof by comparison with field data taken from an actual house in Shiraz, Iran. The effectiveness of the different roof options for passive cooling have been examined. Results indicate that for the house under study (of popular size and building material for Shiraz) cooling load demand reductions of 79.0%, 58.1% and 43.6% may be obtained by using shaded-pond, pond, and shaded roofs respectively. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.