ANALYSIS OF SERVICE CORES IN HIGH-RISE BUILDINGS

Abstract

High-rises4re becoming the predominant feature of all metropolitan cities and India is no exception to such a change. A parameter that is a common point in all high-rises is the vast amounts of energy consumed in a tall structure, which becomes a bigger point of concern in office buildings. Though many studies have been done in the recent years on high-rise buildings, very few studies have been done on the functional or the service core of the whole structure. The service core is the location of the facilities like vertical circulation, mechanical services, fire fighting services etc. which are needed for the keeping the structure in operation. In many cases the service core also acts as the structural core. The predominant location of the service core is at the center in case of most office buildings and the number hardly exceeds one. Moving the core to the periphery of the building and increasing the number to more than one does have its direct effect on the ratio of fenestration area to the wall area. A decrease in the fenestration ratio leads not only to the direct decrease in the natural lighting of the space, but also to the decrease in the direct solar radiation entering the space. While the first leads to increase in the electrical energy consumption for artificial lighting, so as to maintain visual comfort levels; the second could lead to a decrease in the HVAC (Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning) load of the structure. But the heat gain due to the artificial lighting could also lead to an increase in the HVAC load of the space. The purpose of this study is to find whether the service core can also act as the thermal buffer zone so as to decrease the thermal heat gain of the structure. This 7 study examines the effect of using of-using multiple on different floor plate sizes for high-rise buildings in New Delhi. For this study four different floor plate sizes have been identified with five different locations of the service core. The different floor plates with the varying locations of the service cores have been simulated using the building simulation tool Autodesk ECOTECT and analysed! The results reveal that though a smaller floor plate size could lead to a decrease in the overall energy consumption of the building, but a larger floor plate area could well lead to a large increase in the total energy consumption.