Investigation of energy need for the discrete and the adjacent houses: Thermal parameter effects

The important part of the energy needs in Turkey is taken place in residential buildings. The heating energy needs of the housings among the total need is at the first place. This fact attracts the interest of engineers and researchers who design residential buildings and residential buildings heating systems. Such interest is leading the way for studies to investigate the relation between energy needs and related parameters. In these studies, it is accepted that the parameters related to heating energy needs are thermal parameters such as external wall thermal resistance, building thermal mass and outdoor temperature amplitude. Beyond the mentioned thermal components of the buildings, being few or multiple floors and arranged discrete or adjacent manner are effective facts for the building energy needs too. In the thesis study, heating based energy needs for a discrete and an adjacent manner arranged single-story house was numerically investigated for two different thermal mass and two different thermal resistance of the outer wall. Thermal analysis of the residential building under investigation has been carried out by the EnergyPlus software. Findings of the analysis have been presented in hourly indoor air temperature variations for one month period of time. The energy needs have been expressed in the energy unit for the defined time period. The numerical results show that both the thermal parameters and the type of arrangement affect the energy needs. Thermal resistance reduces the energy needs, but the thermal mass has no effect on the energy needs. On the other hand, thermal mass affects the time to reach the steady condition and the amplitude of indoor temperature. In the energy needs point of view, the adjacent arrangement has advantages over the discrete arrangement. Among the cases examined, Adjacent-Insulated house and Discrete-Uninsulated house energy needs the least and the highest, respectively. Key Words:Building energy modeling,Thermal resistance,Thermal mass,Energy need,Discrete arrangement,Adjacent arrangement