PASSIVE COOLING

Passive cooling is a building

design approach that focuses
on heat gain control and heat
dissipation in a building in
order to improve the indoor
thermal comfort with low or no
energy consumption.
Approach

1. Heat Prevention
2. Modulation and Heat Dissipation
Heat Prevention
To provide protection and/or prevention of
external and internal heat gains.

Techniques
• Microclimate and site design
• Solar control
• Building form and layout
• Thermal Insulation
1. Microclimate and Site Design
The passive design depends very much on
local climate and site characteristics.

Factors
Local climate (sun, wind)
Site characteristics (type of terrain and landscape
ie., plain, hilly, plateau)

These two factors influence selection of

suitable cooling strategy, building design
and location.
2. Solar Control (Shading)
A properly designed shading system can
effectively contribute to minimizing the
solar heat gains. Shading both transparent
and opaque surfaces of the building
envelope will minimize the amount of solar
radiation that induces overheating in both
indoor spaces and building’s structure. By
shading the building structure, the heat
gain captured through the windows and
envelope will be reduced.
• Over hangs
• Awnings
• Light colored building material and
paints
• Deciduous trees
3.Building Form and Layout/Orientation
The form refers to surface/volume ratio of
the building.
The orientation is the positioning of
building in relation to sun.
4. Thermal Insulation
Insulation in the building’s envelope will
decrease the amount of heat transferred by
radiation through the facades. This principle
applies both to the opaque (walls and roof) and
transparent surfaces (windows) of the envelope.
Since roofs could be a larger contributor to the
interior heat load, especially in lighter
constructions (e.g. building and workshops with
roof made out of metal structures), providing
thermal insulation can effectively decrease heat
transfer from the roof.
Modulation and Heat
Dissipation

This technique makes use of heat sinks

which store and remove internal heat gain.
Examples
Night sky, Earth soil, Building mass
There are two types of modulation and heat
dissipation.
• Thermal Mass
• Natural cooling
1. Thermal Mass

These materials store the heat during day

and re-radiate it to space at night.
Concrete, brick is a good example of
thermal mass.
In summer, the re-radiated heat can be
removed through ventilation at night and
vice versa for winter.
2. Natural cooling
Natural cooling refers to the use of
ventilation or natural heat sinks for heat
dissipation from indoor spaces. Natural
cooling can be separated into five
categories different categories:

• Ventilation
• Night flushing
• Radiative cooling
• Evaporative cooling
• Earth coupling
Ventilation
Ventilation as a natural cooling strategy
uses physical properties of air to remove
heat or provide cooling to occupants.
Types

Cross ventilation
Stack ventilation
Cross Ventilation
It relies on wind to pass through the building for
the purpose of cooling the occupants. Cross
ventilation requires openings on two sides of
the space, called the inlet and outlet. The sizing
and placement of the ventilation inlets and
outlets will determine the direction and velocity
of cross ventilation through the building.
Generally, an equal (or greater) area of outlet
openings must also be provided to provide
adequate cross ventilation.
Stack Ventilation
It is the upward movement of air through
openings in a building fabric due to
thermal buoyancy and/or negative
pressure generated by the wind over the
roof.
Night Flushing
The building thermal mass (concrete,
brick) absorbs solar heat during day and
re-radiate the same at night. The
ventilation (winds) removes the heat and
make building cool.
The technique is mostly suitable in areas
where there is large difference in daily
max and min temperature.
Radiative Cooling
All objects constantly emit and absorb
radiant energy. An object will cool by
radiation if the net flow is outward, which is
the case during the night. At night, there is
a net flow to the sky. Since the roof
provides the greatest surface visible to the
night sky, designing the roof to act as a
radiator is an effective strategy.
Evaporative Cooling
It is the evaporative process of water to cool the
incoming air while simultaneously increasing the
relative humidity. A saturated filter is placed at the
supply inlet so the natural process of evaporation
can cool the supply air. Apart from the energy to
drive the fans, water is the only other resource
required to provide conditioning to indoor spaces.
The effectiveness of evaporative cooling is largely
dependent on the humidity of the outside air; dryer
air produces more cooling. A study found that
evaporative cooling reduced inside air
temperature by 9.6 °C compared to outdoor
temperature. An innovative passive system uses
evaporating water to cool the roof so that major
portion of solar heat does not come inside
Earth Coupling
Earth coupling uses the moderate and
consistent temperature of the soil to act as
a heat sink to cool a building through
conduction. This passive cooling strategy
is most effective when earth temperatures
are cooler than ambient air temperature,
such as in hot climates.

• Direct coupling
• Indirect coupling
Direct coupling or earth sheltering
occurs when a building uses earth as a
buffer for the walls. The earth acts as a heat
sink and can effectively mitigate
temperature extremes. Earth sheltering
improves the performance of building
envelopes by reducing heat losses and
also reduces heat gains by limiting
infiltration.
Indirect coupling means that a building is
coupled with the earth by means of earth
ducts. An earth duct is a buried tube that
acts as avenue for supply air to travel
through before entering the building. The
supply air is cooled by conductive heat
transfer between the tubes and
surrounding soil. Therefore, earth ducts
will not perform well as a source of cooling
unless the soil temperature is lower than
the desired room air temperature.