Aspect Ratio Of Building Form As A Tool For Enhancing Thermal Comfort In The Design Of A Telecommunications Office Building (maiduguri)

Thermal comfort is recognized as a key parameter for healthy and productive largeworkspaces found in office buildings. Achieving occupants comfort is a priority that hasa great effect on energy demand in buildings, particularly in hot climate zones. Thestudy aims at investigating a suitable aspect ratio of building form that will reduce thecostly effects of providing thermal comfort to occupants in buildings in a hot-dry climateof Nigeria.A case study approach was adopted to study the geometric properties of existingsimilar office buildings which were chosen purposively and a quantitative researchmethod was used for the collection of data through computer simulation. Firstly, thestudy examined the thermal performance of different building forms with the same floorarea against their volume to surface ratio (V/S). Forms with good thermal performancewere optimized with different aspect ratios elongated along east-west orientation.ECOTECT program was used to study the energy performance of the forms on exposedsurfaces.From the deduction of the study, the west and south surfaces are the most exposed (interms of heat gain and incident light), both the cube and cylinder forms were optimizedwith various aspect ratios and simulations were conducted to observe the extent to whichsolar radiation could be reduced on exposed west surfaces during hot periods andmaximized on south surfaces during cold periods.The study showed that a slight change in the volume to surface ratio could have asignificant impact in a building’s energy performance, and also significant thermalenvironment can be attained during both hot and cold periods when optimized with anoptimum aspect ratio of (1:1.7) as compared to aspect ratio (1:1). 33% and 28% energyare further saved on south and west surfaces respectively when aspect ratio “1:1.7” (idealratio) is compared with aspect ratio “1:1”. Also, it was noted that the incident solarradiation decreases from aspect ratio 1:1.7 indicating 71% exposure, 1:1 and 1:2 indicating72% exposure, 1:2.5 indicating 73% exposure, 1: 4 indicating 77% exposure and 1:3indicating 78% exposure. Therefore, it could be said that an ideal aspect ratio of 1:1.7existed for the wide range of ratios from 1:1-1:4. In conclusion, the thermal comfort ofthe proposed building could be optimized by applying the aspect ratio “1:1.17”of cylindrical/cuboidal form to reduce the effect of west and south solar radiation. It isrecommended that prospective designers should go beyond only orienting buildings oneast-west axis, rather, effort to experimentally explore different aspect ratios should beconsidered for befitting alternative.

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