Low-energy cooling of a medicine warehouse in a hot humid climate

The research was aimed at the definition of a design hypothesis for the construction of a pharmaceutical warehouse in a hot humid area of southern Sudan. The candidate hypotheses were based on an existing prefabricated single-storey pitched-roof steel structural systems 18 m long and 9 m wide and had to be constructible at a low cost and using local materials. At climatic level, the goal was that daily d.b. temperatures not exceeding 27-28 °C were reached by passive of very low-energy means, which was not easy to achieve in the given conditions. A construction hypothesis was made by the author adopting the following solutions: a) masonry for the walls, insulated from the outside and protected by rainscreens; b) a heavy concrete floor insulated from the outside and suspended upon a ventilated cavity; c) a ventilated and insulated metal-sheet pitched roof. Three passive cooling strategies based of the described solution have been tested by the author through the use of the ESP-r software tool: the first exploiting nightly stack effect ventilation, the second based on forced night-only fan ventilation, and the third based on night top-down ventilation activated by roof radiant cooling. The second and third hypotheses have been found to meet the thermal requirement and the second one was at last selected, because it seemed to guarantee lower construction costs and be less dependent from weather conditions.