Name: Maida Passamai Baldotto
Type: MSc dissertation
Publication date: 19/12/2022
Advisor:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| Edna Aparecida Nico Rodrigues | Advisor * |
Examining board:
| Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| Andréa Coelho Laranja | Internal Examiner * |
| Carolina dos Santos Gusson | External Examiner * |
| Edna Aparecida Nico Rodrigues | Advisor * |
Summary: The accelerated urban growth rate is alarming. As urban centers develop, is it
noticeable the decrease in green areas while the increase of paved surfaces and built
up density. Environmental changes, and especially the predicted increase in global
temperature, make the phenomenon of urban heat islands aggravate thermal stresses,
with the most severe effects in urban areas, mainly affecting the user level. The
building envelope (vertical sealing, openings and roof) plays a prominent role in terms
of interference with the external environment. The use of reflective surfaces on the skin
of the building can severely affect the surroundings, causing overheating, glare and
even risks to the health of the pedestrian. Buildings with large glass façade have been
consolidating themselves as an international style of commercial architecture adopted
in several countries and consequently, the use of glass, mainly the reflective type, is
growing in certain neighborhoods of Vitória/ES. Thus, the objective of this research
was to analyze the effect of using reflective glass on facades of commercial buildings,
in the urban microclimate of the city of Vitória/ES. The methodology adopted was
divided into four stages: characterization of the object of study and the physical and
climatic variables, microclimatic measurements, computer simulations and parameters
for analysis of the results. Therefore, the study area was defined and the field
measurement was carried out. Then, the scenarios were calibrated and simulated in
the ENVI-met software, one existing model and the others hypothetical, these differing
from each other in the amount of reflective glass on the facades and only one with the
use of colorless glass. The results show that the factors compared between the
hypothetical scenarios: air temperature, mean radiant temperature, physiological
equivalent temperature (PET) and universal termal climate index (UTCI) demonstrate
an increasing trend in the scenarios with the use of reflective glass, at the hottest times
of the day, but the differences were not significant, with values in a range below 1ºC.
This indicates that there is an interference of reflective glass in the urban environment,
but it is minimal for the pedestrian in the studied microclimate.
