Do sunspaces work in Scotland? Lessons learnt from a CEC solar energy demonstration project in Glasgow.

The paper examines the extent to which user's intervention may compromise the therrmal performance of small sunspaces in the context of a Solar Energy Demonstration Project at Easthall in Glasgow (55°52'N), which was monitored from September 1992 to May 1994. Results indicate a tendency to close down windows etc. late in autumn and open them up early in spring relative to heat demand. In other words a user – driven energy load due to ventilation is higher in autumn and spring than in the central winter period.

Natural ventilation: impact of wall material and windows on thermal comfort.

Thermal comfort in a naturally ventilated test room is investigated. The test room is a lightweight portable cabin located in a sheltered area at Loughborough University, UK. Thermal comfort simulations were carried out for various sizes of openings and glazing. Medium and high thermal mass were added to the test room and their effects on thermal comfort were investigated. The results suggested that thermal mass has significant effect on thermal comfort parameters. Adding a 200 mm thick layer of medium-density concrete to the walls improved the thermal comfort over the summer by 40%.

Investigation of the impact of natural ventilation through windows on the thermal comfort.

When talking about air-conditioning systems in buildings people argue with high energy consumption of those systems. They do not take into account that it is not possible in many climates to realise several indoor thermal conditions by merely opening windows.Within the framework of the research project SANIREV, sponsored by BMBF and ROM, the Hermann-Rietschel-lnstitute make tests about the use of window ventilation. For different roomloads and out-door-conditions the room conditions are determined. Now we got the first results.

Creating windows of energy saving opportunity.

Windows are where we often look to improve the energy performance in old homes. But don't rip out those old sashes yet. A field study in Vermont suggests that "remove and replace" is not necessarily the way to go when it comes to old windows.

Domestic draughtproofing: materials, costs and benefits.

Draughtproofing the doors, windows and other sources of excessive air leakage of a dwelling can be an effective and relatively inexpensive means of improving comfort and reducing heat loss by natural ventilation. The doors and windows considered in this digest are existing components not originally designed for draughtproofing. Products for general use on these components have to fill a wide range of gap sizes, be durable and retain the ease of opening and closing.

Energy consumption rates due to windows, on lighting and cooling.

This paper reports on an experimental study dealing with the effects of an automatic shading device on the energetic performance of a dimmable lighting system and on a cooling system. Some equations related to fenestration thermal properties are reformulated under a theoretical approach. In order to collect field data, energy demands and other variables were measured at the "Test Tower" on two distinct floors with identical fenestration features. New data were gathered after adding an automatic shading device to the window of one of the floors.

A study of window location and furniture layout to maximise the cooling effect for an urban Taiwanese apartment by night ventilation.

The year-round climate of Taiwan is warm and humid. Apart from the hottest months in summer, there are four months suitable for nocturnal ventilation to acquire indoor cooling. The urban Taiwanese apartments are small due to the limited usable land.

CFD simulation of airflows and thermal environment in passive architectures - application to a room with Trombe wall system.

Applicability of CFD simulation to designing passive architectures was investigated using a passive solar room with a Trombe wall system inside it. In the investigation non-steady numerical simulation was performed to predict thermal environment in the test room. Two weather models assuming a typical fine winter day were compared, one was the model based upon the data in Osaka and the other was that in Sapporo. The test room has glazing in the south side wall and in the north side one. Each glazing was covered with an insulating door during night.

Effects of glass plate curvature on the U-factor of sealed insulated glazing units.

This paper presents the results of a study aimed at quantifying the change in the U-factor caused by glass plate curvature in sealed, insulated glazing (JG) units. The curvature may be caused by a number of factors, two of which will be studied in this paper-barometric pressure and gas space temperature variations. In the first part of this paper, the equations governing glass plate deflections and heat transfer through JG units are briefly reviewed Then, glass plate deflections and the resulting change in the U-factor of several JG units are examined for ASHRAE-type winter conditions.

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