Employing double skin facade in tropical climate

Abstract

Double Skin Facade (DSF) is a known architectural technique developed along the past decays. DSF provides numerous advantages, but simultaneously it causes some difficulty particularly during the hot days. These problems prevent the wide usage of DSF in countries such as Malaysia. The main issue of employing DSF is overheating of the air cavity. Also, solar chimney strategy is used widely, and DSF structure provides a proper platform for implementing of this strategy. Integration of DSF and solar chimney not only lead to improvement of internal natural ventilation, but it provides platform for utilizing other benefits of the 2nd facade. Thus, this research aims to examine the integration of DSF and solar chimney to enhance internal air velocity using computer simulation. The results of the study indicate that integration of DSF and solar chimney is capable of enhancing internal natural ventilation if proper optimizations have been implemented.