DSF Energy Performance Assessment Considering Different Climatic Regions of Iran and Design Parameters

Buildings account for over 40% of total energy consumption throughout the world. In recent years, double skin façade (DSF) has gained attention as a solution for energy reduction. However, the performance of DSF varies according to climatic conditions and design parameters such as building orientation, cavity width and glazing type. DSF performance has not yet been fully studied for climatic conditions of Iran. In this regard, a three-story office building with an air-tight DSF is simulated in DesignBuilder software considering three different climatic regions of Iran, namely Tehran, Tabriz and Bandar Abas to assess the impact of orientation, cavity width and glazing types of inner and outer skins. It is found that heating demand of the building correlates strongly with the orientation while the cooling load differs slightly for all the regions under study. With increase in cavity width from 0.4 to 1.2m, heating load is dropped by 0.52 MWh/yr. for Tehran, 0.22 MWh/yr. for Tabriz and 0.2 MWh/yr. for Bandar Abas and the cooling load is reduced by 1.89, 1.48 and 0.08 MWh/yr. for Tehran, Tabriz and Bandar Abas, respectively. Moreover, the study shows that inner skin composition has no significant effect on heating load. Grey double glazing outer skin with the minimum cooling loads of 86.6 MWh/yr. for Tehran, 47.9 MWh/yr. for Tabriz and 154 MWh/yr. for Bandar Abas has the optimal performance.