[PhD Defense] Dr. Ramin Rahif, Impact of Climate Change on High-Performance Belgian Houses

Congrats to Dr.?Ramin Rahif?for an excellent dissertation. The Ph.D. was defended on Friday, 15th of September 2023, at 10:00 in B37 Auditorium 02 at Liège University, Belgium. Dr. Rahif demonstrated significant skill in using building performance simulation techniques to estimate the impact of climate change on thermal comfort in residential buildings until the end of the century.

? Do you know that temperate oceanic Belgium is one of the most at-risk countries in the world for high-impact heatwaves?

? Do you know the new Belgian budget proposal addresses only social and economic insecurities and almost nothing about climate insecurities?

Therefore, this Ph.D. research forecasts the impact of climate change on Belgian high-performance houses and provides information on if and which adaptation measures are needed. This dissertation is an article-based PhD, and Dr. Rahif published more than five key papers were published as part of his Ph.D.:

• Rahif, R., Amaripadath, D., & Attia, S. (2021). Review on Time-Integrated Overheating Evaluation Methods for Residential Buildings in Temperate Climates of Europe. Energy and Buildings, 252C, 111463. doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2021.111463
• Rahif, R., Hamdy, M., Homaei, S., Zhang, C., Holzer, P., & Attia, S. (2022). Simulation-based framework to evaluate resistivity of cooling strategies in buildings against the overheating impact of climate change. Building and Environment, 208, 108599. doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2021.108599
• Rahif, R., Norouziasas, A., El Nagar, E., Doutreloup, ..., & Attia, S. (2022). Impact of climate change on nearly zero-energy dwelling in temperate climate: Time-integrated discomfort, HVAC energy performance, and GHG emissions. Building and Environment, 223, 109397. doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2022.109397
• Rahif, R., Kazemi, M., & Attia, S. (2023). Overheating analysis of optimized nearly Zero-Energy dwelling during current and future heatwaves coincided with cooling system outage. Energy and Buildings, 287, 112998. doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2023.112998

Dissertation Abstract:?Climate change arising from natural and anthropogenic sources affects the built environment in several ways. One of the major impacts of climate change is the increase in average air temperatures that can lead to more intense, severe, and prolonged heat waves. This study is developed to project the effect of such warming weather conditions on Belgian high-performance houses and provide an idea of mitigation strategies. The study consists of three main parts. In Part I, the study investigates many thermal comfort/overheating evaluation methods to find a fit-to-purpose and appropriate method. In Part II, a comprehensive simulation-based methodological framework is introduced to assess and compare the resistivity of buildings and their cooling strategies to the overheating impact of climate change. Some of the key findings of this study are (i) current building policies and regulations in the region fail to quantify overheating in the context of climate change accurately, (ii) a heating-dominated region like Belgium is expected to become a cooling-dominated one by the end of the century, (iii) replacement of traditional HVAC systems with more efficient ones (e.g., reversible air-to-water heat pump) has a potential of reducing HVAC primary energy use and HVAC GHG emissions up to 13% and 27%, respectively, (iv) passive cooling design strategies, such as natural ventilation, lowering infiltration rates, insulation, use of thermal mass, green roof, and shading devices are highly effective in achieving comfort and energy efficiency benefits, and (v) the use of active cooling systems to deal with more severe heatwaves will become inexorable in the coming decades.

The Ph.D. can be downloaded for free.?Click Here. Check Dr. Rahif's other publications.

Congratulations to Dr.Ramin Rahif, who successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation at Liege University under the supervision of Shady Attia. A big and warm thanks to the jury members, Jonathan Wright , Brice Tréméac , @Philippe Andre, Anne-Claude Romain , Vincent Lemort for their time and dedication in reviewing this 4 years exciting project. All the best for Dr. Rahif's future career.

This Ph.D. was funded by the Walloon Region under the call ’Actions de Recherche Concertées 2019 (ARC)’ (funding number: ARC 19/23-05) and the project OCCuPANt, on the Impacts Of Climate Change on the indoor environmental and energy PerformAnce of buildiNgs in Belgium during summer. The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the Walloon Region and the University of Liege for funding. This study is a part of the OccuPant Project and International Energy Agency (IEA) EBC Annex 80 – ‘‘Resilient cooling of buildings” project activities to define resilient cooling in residential buildings.

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