Summertime Overheating Risk Assessment of a Flexible Plug-in Modular Unit in Luxembourg

• Main Authors: Michaël Rakotonjanahary, Frank Scholzen, Daniele Waldmann
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-10-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: plug-in architecture; modular building; flexible container unit; off-site construction; energy performance; dynamic thermal simulation
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/20/8474

Modular buildings offer faster construction process, provide better construction quality, allow reducing construction waste and are potentially flexible. Frames of modular units can be made of metal, timber, concrete or mixed materials but lightweight structures do not always allow erecting high-rise buildings and generally present a higher risk of overheating and/or overcooling. To reconcile these pros and cons, a typology of modular building called Slab was designed by a group of architects. The building is composed on the one hand of a permanent concrete structure named shelf-structure and on the other hand of several flexible removable timber modular units, also known as modules. The shelf-structure will host the common utility rooms and will serve as docking infrastructure for the housing modules. To provide high flexibility, the Slab building was designed to adapt to any orientation and location in Luxembourg. An energy concept and a HVAC systems design has been developed for the Slab building. Furthermore, a two-fold sustainability analysis was carried out. The first part of the analysis regards the determination of the minimum required wall thicknesses of the modules in accordance with Luxembourgish regulatory requirements, although the current regulation does not yet consider the Slab building typology. The second part, which is the subject of this paper, is thermal comfort assessment, more precisely, summertime overheating risk assessment of these modules, in compliance with Luxembourgish standard. In this regard, dynamic thermal simulations have been realized on two module variants; the first fulfills the passive house requirements, and the second—the current requirements for building permit application, which in principle corresponds to low energy house requirements. Simulations showed that with adequate solar shading and reinforced natural ventilation by window opening, overheating risk could be avoided for the normal residential use scenario for both module variants.