Assessing passive cooling strategies for a tropical mixed-mode building using calibrated simulations

초록

Mixed-mode ventilation (MMV), which prioritizes natural ventilation and activates mechanical cooling only when necessary, offers a promising strategy for sustainable cooling in tropical climates. However, passive cooling design for mixed-mode buildings remains underexplored. Simplified natural ventilation modeling and fixed boundary assumptions in prior simulation studies may limit the ability to capture passive performance under dynamic mixed-mode operation. This study advances existing knowledge by applying a calibrated multizonal airflow model and a full-factorial parametric framework to systematically quantify interaction effects in a MMV living testbed in Singapore. Results show that glazing SHGC most strongly influences cooling energy consumption, whereas window opening area, corresponding to ventilation capacity, has the greatest impact on reducing indoor operative temperature, particularly under high internal loads. As ventilation increases, the marginal benefits of solar control and thermal mass diminish. However, under elevated changeover setpoints, extensive shading and increased thermal mass continue to significantly reduce overheating degree hours. Across all scenarios, external shading and thermal mass provide more robust thermal benefits than reductions in glazing SHGC or wall solar absorptance. The optimal configuration reduced peak operative temperature by up to 5.4 degrees C, peak cooling load by 19%, and cooling energy use by 36%. By representing ventilation-driven heat removal and envelope-based heat gain and storage within a unified framework, this study reveals that passive strategy prioritization shifts with operational context. While quantitative results are specific to the studied tropical case, the calibrated modeling and factorial approach provide transferable insights for passive design in hot and humid mixed-mode applications.

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