The Study On Eco-Design Of High-Rise Residential Buildings In Wuhan Based On Energy Simulation And Life Cycle Assessment

Energy consumption and environmental impacts of buildings have become a big burden to China's sustainable development. The combination between building energy simulation technology and building life cycle assessment(LCA) method can be feasible to quantitatively evaluate a building' environmental impacts throughout its life cycle. This thesis introduced France engineering tools including building thermal simulation tool COMFIE and building LCA simulation tool EQUER, set a high-rise residential building in Wuhan as the experimental case, studied its thermal performance and validated the simulation tool's availability in Wuhan context. Meanwhile this thesis studied the case's environmental impacts and further the eco-design of residential buildings in Wuhan based on energy simulation method and building LCA.Firstly the building thermal balance theory and building LCA method were studied. The energy transfer and energy balance of a building were analyzed as well as the framework of building LCA. The goal and scope were defined and the environmental impacts of building were evaluated based on 12 environmental indicators.Secondly, the thermal simulation and availability validation of COMFIE were performed. The simulation which analyzed the factors affecting the thermal performance showed that the zone definition and near shadings had strong relationships to the building performance. The simulation results were closed to the experimental measurements, which showed the good relevance of building thermal simulation tool COMFIE in Wuhan weather context.Thirdly, the environmental impacts of the studied case were evaluated. In a life span of 80 years, nearly 76000 ton CO2 eq was emitted and 270 million kWh energy were consumed which was 3.3 million kWh per year. The environmental impacts ranking between four phases in the life was Use > Construction > Renovation > Demolition. The studied case using the ground source heat pump had a good ability in energy saving and environmental impacts reduction. The thermal insulation technologies are effective in Wuhan while PV technology is not appropriate for high-rise residential buildings with small roof.Finally, the eco-design of high-rise residential buildings in Wuhan was studied based on energy simulation and LCA. The thickness of insulation layer was studied as well as natural ventilation in order to reduce the loads. Five heating supply models were compared to satisfy the building's loads. Results shows that there exists an optimal insulation thickness, usually smaller natural ventilation leads to smaller heating load, and central heating technology can significantly reduce buildings' environmental impacts.The methodology and achievements of this thesis can be the reference to eco-design of high-rise residential buildings in Wuhan.