Applying passive cooling measures to a temporary disaster-relief prefabricated house to improve its indoor thermal environment in summer in the subtropics

Temporary prefabricated houses (PHs) can be effective in quickly providing disaster victims with a temporary living place whenever there is a natural disaster. Unfortunately, PHs commonly used for disaster relief purpose do not ensure a thermal comfortable internal conditions for their occupants. In order to search for approaches of improving PH's thermal environment, a simulation model was firstly developed using Energyplus, and validated by comparing the simulated data with the measured data obtained from a purposely built experimental PH. An analysis on summer heat gain based on the validated model showed that PH's windows were responsible for the lion's share of the total heat gain, followed by the roof and east wall. Besides, the effectiveness of applying various passive measures to the PH was studied. The study results suggested that adding a thin movable fabric layer of 0.9 reflectance to the walls and roof, and external window blinds would lead to a very high percentage reduction in unacceptable hours, without however the need to implement all four passive measures, to save the cost of implementation.