CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

With the purpose of optimizing future constructions that minimize the energy comsuption, the global thermal parameters related to the heat flux by conduction across the envelope, the solar gain and the dissipation by wind action are found by solving the "inverse problem" for a public modern edifice built with the local standards in the suburbs of Tandil City (Buenos Aires, Argentina). The indoor temperature and humidity measurements and local meteorological data are analyzed for 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 summers. The months chosen for the study present less influence from human factors (that is, reduced presence of users and administrative staff, limited use of air-conditioners, etc.), and a greater challenge to evaluate the comfort of the installations. The information collected during the first summer was employed to calibrate the model, while that obtained during the second one was used to verify the values of the parameters, finding a good agreement. The found global thermal conductivity of the envelope is compared with that obtained solving the standard direct problem (that is, adding the conductivities of each part of the envelope), finding a partial agreement. The dissipation by wind action and the solar radiation play a secondary role for determining the interior conditions of the building chosen as case of study. Thisnovel method to solve the inverse problem is simple and completely independent of the parameters used in the resolution of the direct problem. It gives useful results that can be used to corroborate the usefulness of the design, the global thermal behaviour of buildings under actual use conditions, and the viability of the materials employed in the construction. In addition, it is based on simple measurements, requires fewer calculations than the direct problem resolution, and has no adjustment coefficients, diminishing the uncertainty of the results.