Thermal comfort of a housing unit in a maritime container in the city of Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

Civil construction has been looking for alternative ways of being an activity that is increasingly sustainable and less harmful to the environment. From this questioning began the search for plausible solutions such as new construction technologies or simply more sustainable materials. In this sense, there is the emergence of construction with maritime container, whose destination is modified and, instead of being waste in ports in cities throughout the world, the maritime container is adapted and becomes a habitable module for construction of different types architectural. However, for the
container to be able to become a habitable building, it needs to undergo changes, as it was built to
accommodate waterway transport products. Among these changes, the most significant is its thermal
suitability, as the container is a corten steel box, which is an excellent thermal conductor. So, a building
built from a maritime container will be required to use thermal coatings that support the climate and
make the environment minimally comfortable. Thus, this study intends, from a computer simulation
carried out in the EnergyPlus software, to analyze the thermal performance of the materials used in
the coverings of a housing unit in a maritime container located in the city of Rio de Janeiro (RJ). Based
on the results obtained with computer simulation, it was observed that the coatings used are
insufficient to keep the internal temperature lower compared to the external temperature. Therefore,
the coatings are unable to meet the recommendations of NBR 15575 (of 2013) for Bioclimatic Zone 8.