EBS REVIEW QUESTIONS

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering climate variables, bioclimatic strategies, thermal comfort models, heat loss calculations, and passive architectural systems.

what’s the blue and red arrows and what could cause them

Sensible Heating and Sensible Cooling (Psychrometric Process).

What is this and explain

Thermal Lag (Time Lag, $\Phi$)

The time delay between when the maximum outdoor surface temperature occurs and when the maximum indoor temperature peak is reached through an exterior building assembly under periodic conditions of heat flow.

Operational Energy

The energy consumed over a building's lifetime to operate its mechanical, electrical, lighting, and HVAC systems.

Embodied Energy

The cumulative energy consumed during all stages of building material extraction, manufacturing, transportation, and building construction.

Three-Tier Approach to Sustainable Architecture

A sustainable design framework consisting of Tier 1 (Basic Building Design: heat retention, heat rejection, heat avoidance), Tier 2 (Passive Systems: natural energies), and Tier 3 (Mechanical Equipment). Tiers 1 and 2 fall directly within the architect's design domain.

Resilient Design

The intentional practice of designing buildings and communities that can withstand, adapt to, and recover quickly from external disruptions such as natural disasters, power outages, floods, fires, or heatwaves while continuing to function.

What concept does this figure show

Activity levels and metabolic rates

Sensible Heat

without changing the phase of a substance, detectable by human skin and measurable with a thermometer.

Thermal Resistance Comparison ($1^{\prime\prime}$ Wood vs. $12^{\prime\prime}$ Concrete)

A condition where equal heat flow occurs through both materials because the thermal resistance of wood is twelve times greater per unit thickness than that of concrete.

British Thermal Unit (BTU)

The quantity of heat energy required to raise the temperature of $1\,\text{lb}$ of liquid water by $1^\circ\text{F}$ without causing a change in phase.

What is this and explain

Insulating Effect of Mass (Thermal Damping)

The capacity of a high-thermal-mass assembly to absorb heat during high daytime temperatures, delay its conduction indoors, and release stored warmth back outdoors or indoors as ambient conditions cool.

What’s a passive cooling strategy that’s based on latent heat

Evaporative cooling

Greenhouse Effect

A solar heat trapping phenomenon resulting from glazing being transparent to incoming short-wave solar radiation while remaining opaque to emitted outgoing long-wave thermal radiation.

Sea Breeze

A daytime local wind created because land heats up more rapidly than water, causing warm air over land to rise and drawing in cooler air from over the water.

Land Breeze

A nighttime local wind created because land cools down faster than water, causing warm air over the water to rise and pulling in cooler air from the land.

Mean Radiant Temperature (MRT)

Combined effect of the temperature and angle of exposure of all surfaces in view

How do plants reduce air and ground temperature?

Shading and transpiration cools air

Plants take water from the ground and admit it through their leaves

Vapo transpiration means evaporation from soil and transpiration from plants

Urban Heat Island (UHI) Effect

A microclimatic phenomenon characterized by elevated ambient temperatures in dense downtown and commercial urban zones compared to surrounding rural areas, driven by heat storage in hard surfaces and limited greenery.

Building Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emission Hierarchy

Best to worst: regenerative, high performance, green sustainable, code compliant, pre energy code

Bioclimatic Chart

A psychrometric design diagram delineating the human thermal comfort zone alongside passive climate control strategy zones such as comfort ventilation, high thermal mass, night ventilation, evaporative cooling, and solar gain.

Wind Pressure Zones on a Building

Blue= windward, positive pressure

Red= leeward, negative pressure

Comfort Ventilation

A passive cooling technique operated day and night that directs outdoor airflow across occupants to enhance convective and evaporative skin cooling while maintaining indoor air temperatures close to outdoor temperatures.

Night-Flush Cooling

A passive cooling strategy where nighttime cool air is introduced into a building to cool its structural mass, after which windows are closed during the daytime so the cooled mass can absorb heat gains.

Degree Day

A climate metric used to estimate seasonal heating and cooling demand, calculated as the absolute difference between the mean daily outdoor temperature and the base reference temperature of $65^\circ\text{F}$ ($18^\circ\text{C}$).

what is this and how does it work

Direct Evaporative Cooling Tower

A passive cooling tower that sprays water droplets into incoming hot, dry air at the top; as water evaporates, the cooled, densified air naturally descends into the interior living space.

what is this and how does it work

Indirect Evaporative Cooling (Roof Pond System)

A passive thermal regulation system consisting of shallow water bags situated on a flat roof paired with movable insulated panels to absorb indoor heat during the day and radiate heat out to the night sky.

Indirect Evaporative Cooling

An evaporative cooling technique where warm air is chilled via an evaporative process across a secondary heat exchange loop (such as chilled water circulated through ceiling panels) without increasing indoor moisture content.

If the average outside temperature for a day is 50° what is the degree day?

15 HDD

If the average outside temperature for a day is 85° what is the degree day?

20 CDD

Direct Earth Contact Cooling

A passive cooling strategy that couples building surfaces directly to subgrade earth, transferring indoor heat into the cooler surrounding ground via conduction.

Solar Altitude

The vertical angular distance measured upward from the horizontal ground plane to the sun's rays, expressing the sun's height in the sky.

Solar Azimuth

The horizontal angle measured along the horizon plane between a cardinal baseline (typically South) and the horizontal projection of the sun's ray.

Even though temperatures are much lower and hot, humid climates than in hot dry climates, the air-conditioning load is much larger because of the need for ____

Dehumidification

Body Heat Loss Mechanisms vs. Temperature

The red is body heat loss by convection and radiation

The green is body heat loss by evaporation

Thermal Conductivity ($k$)

Thermal conductivity of ONE MATERIAL

Trombe Wall

A passive solar heating element composed of a thick, dark masonry mass wall backed by exterior glazing with an air gap; solar heat is stored within the wall during the day and conducted into the indoor space at night.

Operative Temperature ($T_{op}$)

A uniform temperature index defined approximately as the arithmetic average of Mean Radiant Temperature (MRT) and Ambient Air Temperature ($T_a$): $T_{op} = \frac{MRT + T_a}{2}$.

Dew Point Temperature

The saturation temperature at which air reaches $100\%$ relative humidity ($RH$); any additional cooling forces water vapor to condense out into liquid droplets.

Light Shelf

A horizontal architectural shading and daylighting device installed on a window that prevents direct glare near the perimeter while reflecting natural daylight deeper into the interior ceiling space.

What are all the factors that affect thermal comfort

Clothing, metabolic rate, wind speed, air temperature, humidity, radiant temperature

Cool Roof

A roofing assembly finished with high solar reflectance (light coloring) and high thermal emittance to minimize solar heat absorption.

Urban Canyon Aspect Ratio

The ratio of building height to street width ($H/W$); a ratio of $2:1$ or higher is recommended in hot climates to provide effective shading at street level.

Transmission Heat Loss Equation

The equation determining conductive and convective heat transmission across an envelope surface: $Q = \frac{A \times \Delta T}{R} = U \times A \times \Delta T$, where $U$ is thermal transmittance, $A$ is surface area, and $\Delta T$ is temperature difference.

Adaptive Thermal Comfort Model

A thermal comfort framework applicable to naturally ventilated buildings wherein occupants' acceptable indoor operative temperatures shift linearly with monthly mean outdoor temperatures.

Which receives more solar radiation

A because it’s more perpendicular to the sun

Roof Daylighting Apertures

Overhead daylighting configurations that admit natural light from above, categorized into Clerestory, Monitor, Sawtooth, and Skylight geometries.

Latitude and Longitude

Geographic coordinate axes where lines of latitude (parallels) run east-west and measure distance north or south of the Equator, while lines of longitude (meridians) run north-south and measure angular distance east or west of the Prime Meridian.

Daylight Factor (DF)

Indoor light level / outdoor light level

Light-to-Solar-Gain (LSG) Ratio

The ratio evaluating daylighting efficiency relative to solar heat admission, calculated as visible transmittance ($VT$) divided by the solar heat gain coefficient ($SHGC$): $LSG = \frac{VT}{SHGC}$.

Total Building Heat Loss Equation

The summation of sensible envelope heat losses consisting of opaque component transmission, transparent component transmission, and infiltration air loss: $Q_{\text{total}} = Q_{\text{opaque}} + Q_{\text{windows}} + Q_{\text{infiltration}}$.

How does thermal comfort temperature differ between children and older adults?

Children’s higher metabolic rates per body weight as they’re growing and their bodies require more energy per unit of body weight

Children’s lower sweating rate as their sweat glands are not as active as adults

Halfway between the longest and shortest days of the year is the day of equal day and nighttime

Equinoxes

Infiltration is proportional to the square of wind speed so halving the wind speed cuts, infiltration heat loss to ____

1/4

Rank these materials in terms of thermal conductivity highest to lowest

air insulation Adobe water wood

1. Water

2. Adobe

3. Wood

4. Air

5. Insulation

What are the factors affect affecting the amount of light at the base of an atrium

1. Translucency of the atrium roof

2. Reflectance of atrium walls

3. Geometry of the space (depth versus width)

He lost through a peg walls and transparent windows as calculated separately because they typically have different ___ values

U and R values

Infiltration heat losses associated with which heat transfer mechanism

A conduction, B radiation C convection, D thermal resistance

C convection

An insulating panel has a thickness of 3 inches in a thermal conductivity of .125. Calculate it’s R value.

R= L/K

3/.125=24 24 hr • ft² • F/ BTU