Abstract
The solar incidence on an indoor environment and its occupants has significant impacts on indoor thermal comfort. It can bring favorable passive solar heating and can result in undesired overheating (even in winter). This problem becomes more critical for high altitudes with high intensity of solar irradiance, while received limited attention. In this study, we explored the specific overheating and rising thermal discomfort in winter in Lhasa as a typical location of a cold climate at high altitudes. First, we evaluated the thermal comfort incorporating solar radiation effect in winter by field measurements. Subsequently, we investigated local occupant adaptive responses (considering the impact of direct solar irradiance). This was followed by a simulation study of assessment of annual based thermal comfort and the effect on energy-saving potential by current solar adjustment. Finally, we discussed winter shading design for high altitudes for both solar shading and passive solar use at high altitudes, and evaluated thermal mass shading with solar louvers in terms of indoor environment control. The results reveal that considerable indoor overheating occurs during the whole winter season instead of summer in Lhasa, with over two-thirds of daytime beyond the comfort range. Further, various adaptive behaviors are adopted by occupants in response to overheating due to the solar radiation. Moreover, it is found that the energy-saving potential might be overestimated by 1.9 times with current window to wall ratio requirements in local design standards and building codes due to the thermal adaption by drawing curtains. The developed thermal mass shading is efficient in achieving an improved indoor thermal environment by reducing overheating time to an average of 62.2% during the winter and a corresponding increase of comfort time.
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Abbreviations
- clo:
-
clothing insulation
- CV(RMSE):
-
coefficient variation of the root-mean-square error
- D :
-
globe diameter
- Dwd:
-
snow climate with dry winter and cool summer
- E diff :
-
diffuse solar energy coming from the sky vault (W/m2)
- E dir :
-
direct-beam solar energy coming directly from the sun (W/m2)
- E refl :
-
solar energy reflected upward from the floor (W/m2)
- ERF:
-
effective radiant field (W/m2)
- ERFsolar :
-
effective radiant field considering solar effect (W/m2)
- E solar :
-
the sum of direct, diffuse and reflected fluxes that are distributed on the occupant body surface (W/m2)
- I clo :
-
clothing insulation (clo)
- M :
-
metabolic rate (met)
- MBE:
-
mean bias error
- MRT:
-
mean radiant temperature (°C)
- MRTsolar :
-
solar-adjusted mean radiant temperature (°C)
- ΔMRT:
-
addition of short-wave mean radiant temperature due to solar effect (°C)
- P:
-
measurement point
- RH:
-
relative humidity
- SHGC:
-
solar heat gain coefficient
- t a :
-
air temperature (°C)
- t e :
-
ambient temperature (°C)
- t g :
-
globe temperature (°C)
- t op :
-
operative temperature (°C)
- t solarop :
-
solar modified operative temperature (°C)
- \(\overline {{t_{\rm{r}}}} \) :
-
mean radiant temperature (°C)
- V :
-
air velocity (m/s)
- WWR:
-
window to wall ratio
- ε g :
-
emissivity of black globe
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51278525) and the grant of the Top Youth Programme of Wuhan University.
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Huang, L., Kang, J. Thermal comfort in winter incorporating solar radiation effects at high altitudes and performance of improved passive solar design—Case of Lhasa. Build. Simul. 14, 1633–1650 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-020-0743-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-020-0743-x