Abstract

Utilization of a transparent insulation material (TIM) in a solar collector wall has been proven to have a significant potential to reduce heating load in passive solar buildings. Transparent insulation transmits a high proportion of incident solar radiation onto a layer of thermal mass which subsequently slowly releases heat, thus reduces the requirement for heating throughout the day. Due to the high transmittance and convective suppression properties of the transparent material, the thermal resistance of the wall will be improved extensively with minimum losses of transmitted radiation. This thesis presents a numerical simulation model for a building with one transparently insulated wall. The explicit finite difference method is employed to study the thermal performance of an outdoor test room as a function of energy consumption and thermal comfort. It involves first a simulation for a one dimensional wall model with honeycomb-structured transparent insulation material (TIM). Then, a methodology is developed to simulate a complete room that has one transparently insulated wall. Different control strategies are employed for the shading device and one new strategy is developed to estimate the thermal performance of the transparently insulated room taking into account the incidence angle-dependent transmittance of TIM, and the non-linear convective-radiative behavior of both, exterior insulation system and the room interior surfaces. Simulation results indicate significant savings in energy consumption as a result of TIM utilization.