Enhanced cooling in typical Sri Lankan dwellings

Most of the modern office buildings and dwellings in Sri Lanka are designed with the assumption that electrical air-conditioning systems will be used to cope with the countryʹs high humidity and warm climate. The possibility of utilizing passive cooling concepts for that purpose has yet to be explored by architects. This paper investigates the suitability of such cooling concepts for local conditions. Simple architectural modifications and a few changes in the usage patterns may result in a reduction in indoor temperature of 3.0 and 0.4 °C, respectively, for a daily maximum and minimum temperature of 30.9 and 27.2 °C, respectively, in a dwelling in Colombo in December. The achievement of comfort, described by satisfactory levels of predicted percentage of dissatisfied, is also documented. Simulation results are compared with full-scale experiments.