A PASSIVE SOLAR HEATING EXPERIMENT UTILIZING PLASTIC WATER BOTTLES

Year 2019, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 67 - 76, 01.09.2019

Maged Mıkhael Mostafa Metwaly Mırame El-sayed

Abstract

It is a critical concern for architectural educators to increase the awareness of their students about the importance of sustainability in the design of the built environment. This trend is a significant tool that can help the humankind to face many environmental challenges. The passive solar heating design is one of those powerful tools; it relies on specific materials to work as thermal mass or heat sink. Thermal mass can store the solar energy during the day and radiates it to indoor spaces at night in cold seasons, while the reverse process occurs in hot seasons. Due to its high heat storage performance, water is one of the most effective materials for this purpose. This paper aims to introduce a simple and easy process to prepare an experiment that can enhance the understanding and awareness of architectural students to the potential capabilities of water as a thermal mass. The authors asked the students to assign four spaces to carry on the experiment - two identical closed spaces, one semi-closed space, and one open space -; then, the authors directed them to reuse plastic water bottles to build the thermal mass and to constitute small groups that are responsible for monitoring and recording the air temperature within 24 hours. The authors advised the students to use the recorded air temperatures of each space as input data to a web-based thermal comfort tool and to compare the results. A quick survey to measure the students’ satisfaction showed that the experiment participated in increasing the awareness of more than 93 % of the students about the positive effect of using water for thermal mass in elevating the indoor space temperature in cold seasons

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