Assessing the thermal performance of an emergency shelter system

The aims of these tests are to improve conditions inside temporary shelters and to develop tools to assess shelter quality and comfort. Two different prototype shelters were tested in cold conditions with an internal vapour load. Temperature and humidity measurements were taken inside the shelter while the external temperature was maintained at −20 °C. Visual assessments were also carried out during and after testing. In the artificial test environment, both shelters experienced an undesirable variation of air temperature with height, averaging 17 °C between the lower and middle height zones. Models of each shelter were constructed using the Environmental Systems Performance—research (ESP-r) simulation software and were calibrated with the test data. The shelter models were simulated in three different climates using real data from Islamabad, London and Pristina. The feasibility of heating the tent using only the casual gains from occupants and solar radiation was investigated, although it was found that a tent heated in this way would only be appropriate in some locations. Design issues included coping with stratification of air temperature inside the tent, improving light levels without compromising thermal performance and fabricating the materials cheaply and simply. The validity of the results is limited by the lack of measured data for rates of air infiltration.