PhD Success for Fahad Alyami
Congratulations to Fahad Alyami on being awarded his PhD in April 2020 – the School’s first doctoral success since the COVID-19 pandemic closed the University and so a good reason for us to celebrate. Fahad’s thesis was entitled ‘The impact of passive façade design treatments on the thermal performance of office buildings in Saudi Arabia for Current and Future Climates’.
Energy demand in modern office buildings in Saudi Arabia is dominated by the need for air conditioning to maintain thermal comfort for occupants. A major problem is that the façades of these glass and steel framed office buildings do not offer much resistance to excessive solar and temperature gains. In his study, Fahad monitored the thermal performance of such an office building and then developed a dynamic thermal simulation model to test what passive changes to the building’s façade (extra insulation, better windows and different window-to-wall glazing ratios) might reduce energy demand whilst maintaining thermal comfort. Having identified the optimized combination of façade parameters, Fahad then digitally tested the modified office’s performance for predicted future changes in Saudi Arabia’s climate over the coming decades. Fahad has presented his work at a major international conference: Alyami F and Sharples S (2017) Envelope design and thermal comfort performance in a high-rise office building in Saudi Arabia, Proc. 33rd International Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture, Edinburgh.