Non-Uniform Temperature Field of Spatial Grid Structure under Construction Induced by Solar Radiation

Abstract

The temperature of spatial structures under construction can have a significant non-uniform distribution induced by intense solar radiation. This temperature distribution affects the component assembly and results in closure difficulties, potentially causing safety hazards. A spatial grid structure model was designed and subjected to temperature field test under sunlight to study the temperature distribution of the structure and for comparison with numerical simulation methods. The distribution characteristics and the time-varying laws were analyzed based on the test data. Then, the ray-casting algorithm was introduced to analyze the shadow influence between members, so that the temperature distribution of the model was simulated accurately, which was verified by the test data. The results show that the spatial grid structure had an obvious non-uniform temperature distribution, with a maximum temperature rise of 16 °C when compared with ambient temperature and a maximum temperature difference between members of 11 °C. The variation laws were gained both from the test and the numerical simulation. The numerical simulation method proposed herein can be used to calculate the shadow distribution and the temperature field of the structure effectively. The research methods and conclusions can provide valuable references for thermal design, monitoring, and control of spatial grid structures.

Finite Element Modeling of a Solar Box Cooker: Temperature and Fluid Velocity Distributions

“…However, most of these studies have considered the behavior of the materials constituting the solar cooker as homogeneous [10] [11] [12]. But, physical parameters of the system change in time as well as in space [13] [14] [15].…”

Non-Uniform Temperature Fields and Effects of Steel Structures: Review and Outlook

“…With the development of design methods and construction technologies, the structural forms of steel structures are becoming more and more complex, and their engineering scale is growing; meanwhile, they are very sensitive to temperature variation. Within the lifecycle of a steel structure, which includes the construction and service periods, due to the dynamic coupling effects of solar radiation, longwave radiation, convective heat transfer, shadows, and other factors, its temperature field and effect will have significant time variations and non-uniformity [2,3]. However, the traditional and familiar design methods regard the temperature variation of steel structures to be a slow and uniform process [4][5][6], mainly considering seasonal temperature variations and ignoring the influence of other environmental factors, which leads to differences between calculation results and the practical situation of temperature fields and effects of steel structures.…”