Effects of thermal mass, ventilation, and glazing orientation on indoor air temperature in buildings

Abstract

In the last years in European countries important measures were taken in order to reduce the energy need of buildings. Nevertheless the energy need for cooling of buildings is rising. In most cases, to assure the required operative temperature, air conditioning systems are installed. Consequently, in summer period the power networks of different European countries are overloaded. In order to determine the effects of glazed area orientation, air change rate and thermal mass on the indoor air temperature, at the University of Debrecen the PASSOL laboratory was built. Measurements were performed from 2009 to 2013. Using the methodology given by EN ISO 13790 the variation of indoor temperature was calculated and the theoretical values were compared with values obtained from measurements. The indoor temperature variation and the energy need for cooling was analysed for different building structures, different orientations of the glazed area and air change rates. The calculations have proven that the energy need for cooling can be reduced even to 25% of the thermal mass and the air change rate are chosen properly.

The modelling gap: Quantifying the discrepancy in the representation of thermal mass in building simulation

“…The thermal mass of the fabric can be used as a passive design strategy to reduce energy use for space conditioning [18][19][20][21][22][23]. The term thermal mass defines the ability of a material to store sensible thermal energy by changing its temperature.…”

Air Terminal Devices Developed for Personal Ventilation Systems

“…Worldwide numerous publications have been released with indoor climate, thermal comfort in office buildings from heating viewpoint, cooling, mechanical ventilation (mixed, displacement), and air controlling system research results [2][3][4][5][6][7].…”

The comparison of design airflow rates with dynamic and steady-state displacement models in varied dynamic conditions

“…At the same time, air stratification created by plumes depends on potentially dynamic parameters, such as strength, type and location of heat gains, ventilation airflow rate and supply air temperature. Besides, since DV is usually applied in non-residential buildings that are not occupied continuously, the thermal mass effect, varied internal and solar heat gains significantly reflect the room air temperatures (Ferdyn-Grygierek and Baranowski 2011; Csáky and Kalmár 2015;Coşkun et al 2017). It means that in practical applications, the current steady-state models cannot accurately predict the room air temperature gradient in dynamic conditions.…”