The impact of roof orientation on indoor thermal comfort: A case study of test houses in Bandung

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of roof orientation on the indoor thermal environment. This study conducted field measurement on the test houses built for the experiment. EnergyPlus software was used to simulate different configurations of four roof orientations (i.e., North-South, East-West, East, and West) of test houses located in Bandung. The measured data from the field measurement were compared with the simulation result, to validate the simulation tool. Field measurement and simulation for the different roof orientations of test houses were conducted in the dry season (August 2018). Evaluation of thermal comfort of simulation and field measurement result was carried out by using Indonesia National Standard (SNI) [6310-2011] and Adaptive Thermal Comfort Equation (ATCE), which was developed for the use in hot-humid climatic regions. The result shows that based on field measurement, the east roof orientation has the highest thermal comfort level in terms of SNI and ATCE. The simulation result shows the north-south roof orientation has the highest thermal comfort level in terms of SNI and ATCE.