SUMMARY and COMPARISON of METHODS to CALCULATE SOLAR HEAT Gain
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
© 1995. American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. (www.ashrae.org). Published in ASHRAE Transactions, Vol. 101, Part 1. For personal use only. Additional reproduction, distribution, ortransmission in either print or digital form is not permitted without ASHRAE’s prior written permission. CH-95-8-2 (RP-713) SUMMARY AND COMPARISON OF METHODS TO CALCULATE SOLAR HEAT GAiN JohnL. Wright,Ph.D., P.Eng. Member ASHRAE ABSTRACT windowthat reaches the conditioned space of the building, thus reducing the heating load or adding to the cooling load. Methods used to calculate the solar gain of windows It is customary to analyze a windowby examining each of (including center-glass, edge..glass, and frame) are exam- three areas: (1) the center-glass area, Acg (i.e., the glazed ined and comparedParticular attention is devoted to the area morethan 2.5 ino (63.5 ram) fromany sight line); (2) public-domain computer programs VISION3 and WINDOW edge-glass area, Aeg; and (3) the frame area, Aft. 1 Aft is the 4.1o Calculatedresults are presentedto quantify the sensitiv- area, projected to the plane of the wall, of the rough opening ity of solar heat gain with respect to a wide rangeof glazing minusinstallation clearance and the view area (view area system design parameters and operating conditions. Details Acg + Aeg). SHGCvalues can be found for each of the three concerning solar optical properties and heat transfer mech- component areas. These are SHGCcg,SHGCeg, and SHGCfr, anisms are examined and discussed When possible, com- respectively. The component SHGCvalues can be area- ments are made concerning the development of solar gain weighted to give the total windowSHGC: measurementprocedures. Solar gain is most sensitive to the solar optical properties of the glazings--the most important SHGC= Acg" SHGCcg+Aeg°SHGCe~+Afr" SHGCfr (1) property being the transmittance of the outdoor glazing. Acg+’deg+ Af~. Variablesthat directly affect heat transfer rates (e.g, 1711gas type, convective heat transfer coefficients) have a signifi- VISION3deals only with the center-glass portion of the cantly smaller effect. window. WINDOW4.1 can be used to determine the SHGC of an entire windowbut this program actively models only iNTRODUCTiON the center-glass area while drawing results from other sources that describe the performanceof the edge-glass and Background fi’ame sections. On this basis, it can be said that VISION3 Two public-domain window analysis programs, VI- and WINDOW4.1 perform similar calculations. They can SION and WINDOW,are widely used in North America. both be used to performsolar’ optical and heat transfer calcu- WINDOWwas produced by a U.S. laboratory and VISION lations to arrive at center-glass SHGCvalues. These pro- was written by the author of this paper. Both programshave gramsare both limited to dealing with planar glazings with been released in several versions. In general, the infozmation specular solar’ optical properties. Componentsthat carmot be included here pertains to the most recent versions of each-- dealt with include nonspecularitems such as frost glass, fi- WINDOW4.1 and VISION3. berglass-reinforced panels and shades, or curved items such The best source of information regarding the models as bubbleskylights. used in WINDOWis a report prepared for the U.S. Depart- VISIONand WINDOWboth take advantage of the fi~ct ment of Energy (DOE)by Finlayson et al. (1993). Other that there is no appreciable overlap betweenthe band of solar sources include Arasteh et al. (1989) and AppendixA of the wavelengths below about 3 ~tm and the band of longer wave- WINDOW4.0 program description manual (LBL 1992). length radiation in whichheat transfer" takes place. In this These three documents pertain specifically to WINDOW sense both programs employa two-band analysis that leads 4.0, but material included with WINDOW4.1 states that "no naturally to a two-step simulation process. First, an optical internal programcalculations have changedin version 4.1 ." analysis determines howmuch of the solar radiation is re- The VISION3 models are documented in the flected frorn the glazing system to the outdoor environment, VISION3referencemanual (Wright and Sullivan 1992). howmuch is absorbed at each of the glazings; and howmuch This paper examines windowsolar heat gain--how it is is transmitted directly to the indoor space. Second, a heat calculated and what affects it. Windowsolar heat gain is quantified by the solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC),which lTheadditional complexityof consideringmeeting rails and differ~ is simply the portion of radiant solar energy incident on a encesin head/silldetail, etc., is not includedin this study~ John L. Wrightis a managerand a research engineer at the AdvancedGlazingSystem Laboratory in the Departmentof MechanicalEngi- neeringat the Universityof Waterloo,Waterloo, ON, Canada. 802 ASHRAETransactions: Symposia © 1995. American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. (www.ashrae.org). Published in ASHRAE Transactions, Vol. 101, Part 1. For personal use only. Additional reproduction, distribution, ortransmission in either print or digital form is not permitted without ASHRAE’s prior written permission. transfer analysis is used to impose an energy balance on trast, bronze glass, which is used widely for commercial each glazing. The net heat transfer from any glazing must be applications in North America,is highly absorbing. equal to the amountof absorbedsolar radiation. The second componentof solar gain must be found us- The solar optical calculation can be completedwithout ing both the solar optical analysis and the heat transfer analy- any information regarding glazing temperatures or heat sis. The amountof solar radiation absorbedat an individual transfer. The only information from the solar optical step glazing is determinedby the optical calculation. A portion of neededin the heat transfer step is the amountof solar radia.- this energy ends up going to the indoor space. The size of tion absorbedat each glazing. These two steps yield the tem- this "inward-flowing fraction" depends on howthe thermal perature profile and the rate of heat transfer at each glazing resistance of the glazing system is distributed from the in- or interpane gap, which can then be used to determine indi- door side to the outdoor side (see Equations 56 through 60 of ces of merit such as the center-glass U-factor and SHGCcg. Wright and Sullivan [1992] or Equation 5.2B ofFinlayson et WINDOW4.1 offers the option of using a multiband so- al. [1993])o Therefore, the heat transfer analysis must be lar optical model. Reflected, absorbed, and transmitted complete, yielding the required values of thermal resistance amounts of solar radiation can be estimated with a wave- at each step through the glazing system, before SHGCcgcan length-by-wavelength calculation that can use any solar be quantified. spectral irradiance function the user supplies. The ASTM It can be seen howglazing systems can be divided into E891-87solar spectrum (air mass 1.5) is provided as the de- two broad categories. The accurate calculation of solar gain fault. This multiband calculation will make a difference for glazing systems with high solar transmittance will rely whenT two or morespectrally selective glazings are used to more heavily on the solar optical model than on the heat gether. Nodifference results whenit is applied to a single transfer model. The amount of energy absorbed and glazing. All glazings are spectrally selective to somedegree. redirected will constitute a small adjustmentin relation to the The solar transmittance curves of manyhigh-transmittance energy that is directly transmitted. In contrast, someglazing glazings rise to a peak near the visible wavelengthband and systems do not transmit solar radiation well because of the drop to zero again at the upper extreme of the solar band. presence of tinted glass or highly absorbingcoatings. In this This characteristic occurs naturally in glass and by design in case, a moresignificant portion of the solar gain will result products with a low-e coating, but does not apply to many from absorbed and redirected solar energy, makingit impor- tinted and reflective products. tant to use an accurate heat transfer model. Examplesof glazing combinations can be cited to show It is easy to recognize the dominant mechanism by that solar transmittance and SHGCcgresults from the multi- whicha glazing system supplies solar gain. If the solar gain band model will not be higher or lower, as a rule, than the results primarily from direct transmission, SHGCcgwill be corresponding quantities calculated with a single-band only slightly greater than the solar transmittance, ~s. model. However,if absorption/redirection contributes heavily to the solar gain, SHGCcgwill be significantly greater than ~s. Objective These two cases are illustrated by the two VISION3graphic analysis summariesshown in Figures 1 and 2. The conven- The goal of this study was to examine the methods used tional single glazing shownin Figure 1 delivers almost all of to calculate solar heat gain for windows,including a compar- its solar gain by direct transmission (SHGCcg= 0.86, ~s ison of calculations used in VISION3and WINDOW4.1. In 0.84). The double-glazed system shownin Figure 2 includes addition, an effort was madeto quantify the importance of a heavily tinted glazing on the indoor side. This glazing various parametersthat governsolar gain in order to assist in strongly reduces the direct transmission of solar energy but the developmentof solar gain measurementprocedures. absorbs a significant amount, almost all of which is Center-Glass Solar Heat Gain redirected to the indoor space (SHGCcg= 0.62, "~s = 0.27). The solar heat gain from a glazing system consists of Solar Gain Through Frameand Dividers two components: Until recently, the accepted methodto calculate solar 1. solar radiation passed through the windowand absorbed indoors and gain through a complete windowwas to apply the SHGCcg value over the entire view area and to neglect any solar gain 2. solar radiation absorbed within the glazing system and that occurs through the frame.