ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 753

Case Study Building
The original school building is a female secondary school building in the city of Tehran. The typical school building has four storey including a basement and a ground floor with a masonry
structure. The construction materials and thermal properties of the school building are the typical
building materials used for masonry buildings such as brick as the thermal mass material and
glass wool as the thermal insulation material (Table.1). It should be mentioned that, 90% of the
existing school buildings in Iran have a masonry structure (Mahdizadeh 2011).
Table 1: Materials, thickness and U-value of building components in case study school building
Components

Materials

Internal Walls

Gypsum plastering
Brick block
Gypsum plastering

2.5
10
2.5

1.831

Cement and render
Brick block
Gypsum plastering

3
30
2.52

1.582

Slate tiles
Mortar
Light weight cast concrete
Gypsum plastering

2
2.5
5
1

Asphalt
Mortar
Felt/Bitumen layers
Screed
Thermal insulation (Glass wool)
Cast concrete
Clay Tile
Gypsum plastering and render

3
2
5
10
5
5
25
1

Clear single glaze

6

External Walls

Internal Floor

Roof

External Windows

Thickness
(cm)

U-Value

1.342

0.575

5.778

In this study, two classrooms were selected for field studies experiment and simulation analysis
which represented all classrooms facing south (S) and all classrooms facing north (N) are located
on the 1st and 2nd floors (Fig.1). These classrooms had the largest number of students, 23 and 21,
close to the national average number of the students to the classrooms in Iran which is 22 (CBI
2011). It should be mentioned that the school opening hours was from 7:30am to 12:30pm and also
the heating system of the building was a hot water radiator system during the cold period which
were always on.

Figure 1: Measured classrooms, S and N, on the first and second floors

Passive design strategies on indoor comfort of school buildings in hot-dry climates

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