Potential of form-pocketed design in mitigating heat in a university educational glazed-curtained building in the desert climate of UAE

Rapid population and economic growth, as well as the challenging climate of the United Arab Emirates, have significantly increased the demand for cooling energy. The adoption of passive strategies like solar shading has helped reduce the need for mechanical systems. The purpose of this study is to compare several shading techniques of windows and examine the impact they have on the window's surface temperature for the ground floor. Other floors will be examined in subsequent stages. It examines three methods of shading, including self-shading by pocketed design, shading by vegetation, and shading by building orientation. The study relied mainly on thermal imaging methods to obtain the required data, and FLIR tools software was utilized to analyze it, Moreover, a whole building computer simulation was conducted. The thermal imaging has three main stages: first, a comparison of flat windows that are not shaded versus pocketed windows (104 groups); second, a comparison of flat windows that are shaded by trees versus pocketed windows (64 groups); and third, a comparison of flat windows that are shaded by orientation and pocketed windows (92 groups). The results of this study demonstrate that the cases of self-shading by pocketed design perform better than flat windows even if shaded by vegetation or orientation. The reason for better performance is attributed here to the potential of pocketed design in creating a cooler microclimate next to the pocketed windows that help reduce its surface temperature. The simulation results as well found that pocketed designs consume less energy compared to flat designs.