Green roof retrofitting of a lightweight security booth under subtropical conditions.

The thermal performance of a vegetated roof system was tested for a lightweight, fiberglass security booth during a spring-summer period in subtropical Curitiba, Brazil. An experimental and a control booth, commercially available and widely used in Brazil, were compared for three roof configurations (only substrate; substrate and vegetation; substrate, vegetation and shading mesh) and for two window conditions (shaded and unshaded). Comfort and thermal stress analyses followed normative parameters of wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) and effective temperature (ET). The non-insulated lightweight enclosure reduced advantageous effects from thermal stabilization of indoor air temperatures with the addition of the green roof. Benefits were otherwise observed in ceiling surface temperatures, which reached a peak reduction of 12 K at the experimental booth relative to the control booth. Infra-red images further confirmed spot measurements of surface temperatures in both booths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]