Study on the wintry thermal improvement of makeshift shelters built after Nepal earthquake 2015.

• 50% of the time during night remains below the lowest acceptable temperature, 11 °C. • Total heat loss coefficient per floor area needs to be reduced to 2∼7 W/(m2•K). • The reduction of heat loss coefficient can be achieved by adding insulating materials. • 70% of nocturnal indoor air temperature would be above 11 °C after improvement. After massive earthquake 2015, thousands of Nepalese who lost their permanent houses by the hardest hits were forced to live in makeshift temporary shelters. The field measurement on indoor thermal environment in five shelters was conducted in one of the district hit by the earthquake, Lalitpur, in winter. The mean indoor and outdoor air temperatures during the measured nighttime were found to be 10.3 °C and 7.6 °C, respectively, and the nocturnal indoor air temperature remained below the lowest acceptable temperature of 11 °C. This result assured that these shelters are not good for winter and must create various problems. We therefore analyzed the thermal characteristics of those shelters based on the measured results in order to seek a possible improvement. The total heat loss coefficient estimated per floor area in five shelters ranged from 11.3 to 15.2 W/(m2·K); that is thermal insulation was very low. We made a simple numerical analysis on the variation of indoor air temperature with the assumption of improved thermal characteristics and thereby found that it needs to be reduced about 2∼7 W/(m2·K) to have the indoor air temperature higher than 11 °C for 70% of the whole nocturnal hours. Such reduction of heat loss was found to be realized by adding affordable materials, e.g., cellular polyethylene foam and clothes for respective walls and roof. Thus, the knowledge obtained from this study should hopefully be applied to actual improvement of indoor thermal environment in existing shelters and also to a development for the preparation against future disaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]