Analysis of Windows Element for Energy Saving in a Tropical Residential Buildings in Order to Reduce the Negative Environmental Impacts

Abstract

In the contemporary milieu of today, sustainability and environmental concerns have become a great subject of debate. Matters related to sustainability are often linked to other crucial concerns like energy consumption. Energy is a key factor in ensuring continuous economic growth and development. One of the highest energy consuming systems in buildings – specifically residential homes in tropical regions – is the air conditioning system. Windows have been identified as the weakest link in the fabric of a building as they serve as thermal holes. Thus, the selection of proper window materials is crucial to reduce energy usage by minimizing the cooling and heating requirements of the building. The aims of this paper are analysis of energy performance for diverse types of window’s glazing with different frames in order to find the most optimized window materials for the tropical residential buildings. The selected case study in this paper is modeled and then simulated by Building Information Modeling (BIM) application, which is appropriate for energy analysis. For simulation, some factors of the window materials were taken into consideration including, four physical properties of the U-factor, solar heat gain coefficient, visible transmittance, and emissivity. The result was shown windows types 02 and 03 were the most optimized of window materials and led to 10% energy saving into the base model and the windows type 05 was high U-factor, results in a greater transfer in internal zones and led to high energy consumption.