摘要
The research seeks to understand the effects of internal courtyards on thermal comfort conditions in compound houses in Ghana’s Tamale Metropolitan area.Internal courtyards are an integral part of the design of compound houses in this location.Their inclusion in building designs is largely as a point of domestic activity such as cooking and cleaning and also for social interaction.However,a lot of interchanges in thermal conditions between structures and the outdoors take place within these internal courtyards.Various design details of the building will engender different thermal responses of the internal courtyard.This paper assesses thermal comfort in compound houses as against bungalow type houses in the Tamale Metropolis,Ghana by the application of the Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied Persons(PPD)and Predicted Mean Votes(PMV)model.This prototype compares with the International Standards Organization(ISO)7730 and American Society of Heating,Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers(ASHRAE)Standard 55(estimated values between 23℃-26℃seen as the allowable temperatures).Ambient indoor conditions(dry bulb temperature and relative humidity)of five(5)buildings each from the two building typologies from were recorded over a period of ten calendar months.These ambient conditions were analyzed,consequently generating the Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied Persons(PPD)and Predicted Mean Votes(PMV)recordings.The investigations uncovered relatively high PPD-PMV recordings relating to the Bungalow type buildings while the compound houses attune to the comfort zone.The Actual Mean Votes(AMV)of residents suggests the two building typologies are all rated comfortable however;the compound houses are rated above the bungalow type houses.