Improving indoor thermal and energy performance of large-space residential buildings via active approaches

Improving the indoor thermal and energy performance of residential buildings plays a significant role in the low-carbon goals of building industry. Residential buildings usually utilize the active approaches, such as air conditioning and radiant floor. A large-space residential building that removes partial second floor can employ the retractable membrane ceiling to control building indoor performance. These active approaches can be combined to ensure thermal comfort and save energy of large-space residential buildings. Therefore, this study carries out a series of experiments to quantify the individual and combined effects of retractable membrane ceiling, air conditioning and radiant floor. The dual-approach and triple-approach experiments combine two and three from the retractable membrane ceiling, air conditioning and radiant floor. It is obtained that the membrane ceiling/air conditioning can effectively improve indoor thermal performance. The energy consumptions for air conditioning and membrane ceiling/air conditioning are 1.14 kWh and 0.89 kWh at an air temperature of 25 °C. The triple-approach experiments can solve the local thermal discomfort caused by the low air movement since the radiant floor accelerates the local air movement. The comparisons of temperature difference, air velocity and energy consumption for single-approach, dual-approach and triple-approach demonstrate that the retractable membrane ceiling is an efficient method to improve indoor thermal and energy performance of large-space residential buildings.