Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Engineering - Department of Architecture Engineering

Office buildings in hot arid climates need natural ventilation strategy to get rid of high internal loads, because natural ventilation cannot achieve comfort all the time, using air-conditioning application is a must. So, MMB is used as an effective strategy to reduce energy consumption. The research tries to reach an operating strategy to switch between natural ventilation(NV), and air conditioning(AC) in office buildings in Cairo, concentrating on the influence of air movement on thermal comfort even if outdoor conditions slightly exceed the comfort limits, 13the research tries also to reach the optimum design of MMB envelope. Results show that comfort can be achieved for nearly 74.8% of occupancy hours without air conditioning depending on air velocity influence, also shows that building insulation isn{u2019}t significant. So, the research proposes Mixed-Mode building as a passive building, which switches to active mode when thermal comfort cannot be achieved

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