Year of Research : 2010-2011

Personal work: IDERA Thesis, Comfort Properties of Green Roofs

Graduate school: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya

Project strategies: Green roof's thermal confort, interior temperature formula modification

 

The roof of any building is the part of the envelope that most absorbs the heat from solar radiation. A white colored roof has a high albedo and reflects most part of solar heat. Instead, a dark colored roof absorbs most part of sun heat. This thesis wants to express the proper function of this vegetative layer, how it improves the external microclimate and maintains thermal comfort inside the building. The energy consumption is reduced because the vegetative layer functions as a natural isolator by the plants transpiration and the subtract evaporation. The main goal of this investigation is to compare the temperature variation between four roofs: extensive gardened roof, intensive gardened roof, grave plane roof with high albedo and stoneware transitable roof with low albedo. I used to simulate each different roof, a 50m2 small affordable house in which tree people live, located in Barcelona’s climate. Temperature between each roof type changes because of the roof solar gain (I), the thermal gain interchange coefficient, which includes the albedo (α), the capitation coefficient (γi) and the heat transmission coefficient (U).