Research on the Indoor Thermal Environment of Attached Sunspace Passive Solar Heating System Based on Zero-State Response Control Strategy

The application of attached sunspace passive solar heating systems (ASPSHS) for farmhouses can improve building performance, reduce heating energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. In order to take better use of the attached sunspace to prevent heat transfer or promote natural ventilation, this paper presented a zero-state response control strategy for the opening and closing time of active interior window in the ASPSHS. In order to verify the application of this strategy, an attached sunspace was built in an actual farmhouse. A natural ventilation heat exchange model was built based on the farmhouse with attached sunspace. The proposed zero-state response control strategy was implemented in TRNSYS software. Field measurement in living lab was carried out to inspect the distribution of the thermal environment in the farmhouse with attached sunspace under a zero-state response control strategy in the cold region of northern China. The experimental results show that, even under −5.0–2.5 °C ambient temperature, the application of zero-state response control strategy effectively increases the internal temperature to an average of 25.45 °C higher than the outside, with 23% indoor discernible temperature differential in the sample daytime. The whole-season heating performance was evaluated by simulating the model for the heating season in 2020–2021. The simulation demonstrates that the ASPSHS under zero-state response control strategy can maintain a basic indoor temperature of 14 °C for 1094 h during the heating season, with a daytime heating guarantee rate of 73.33%, thus ensuring higher indoor heating comfort during the day. When compared to a farmhouse with an attached sunspace under the zero-state response control strategy, the energy savings rate can be enhanced by 20.88%, and carbon emissions can be reduced by 51.73%. Overall, the attached sunspace with the zero-state response control strategy can effectively increase the indoor temperature when the solar radiation is intensive and create a suitable thermal environment for the farmhouse in the cold region of northern China.

Reply to Awad, M.M. Comment on “Alam et al. Numerical Simulation of Homogeneous–Heterogeneous Reactions through a Hybrid Nanofluid Flowing over a Rotating Disc for Solar Heating Applications. Sustainability 2021, 13, 8289”

This write-up presents a closure to the comments of Awad, M.M. (2021) on the paper “Numerical Simulation of Homogeneous–Heterogeneous Reactions through a Hybrid Nanofluid Flowing over a Rotating Disc for Solar Heating Applications” (Alam et al., 2021). The authors have addressed each of the comments in detail to uphold the correctness of the mathematical formulation together with the pertinent results presented in our published article.

Enhancing Energy Storage Capacity of Graphene Supercapacitors via Solar Heating

Enhancing the energy storage capacity of supercapacitors is facing great challenges. Converting solar into heat has emerged as a promising strategy to enhance the capacity of energy storage devices by...

Mass flow rate optimization in solar heating systems based on a flat-plate solar collector: A case study

Little works considered the optimization of working fluids in solar systems. Engineers, designers and scientists are interested with the optimization problems, furthermore it is very important specially, for solar systems to improve the energetic behavior and increase their efficiencies as a conversion system of solar irradiance to a useful thermal power. According to the available literature, the criteria of optimization mainly relates to energetic and economic analysis (one of them or both). The analysis was based upon the maximum useful energy obtained from solar collector. Accordingly, the optimum mass flow rate was found aspires to infinity. The second analysis is based upon minimum cost of the unit of useful energy [$/W]. The optimum mass flow rate of solar air-heating flat-plate collector for the considered domestic solar heating system has been found 29 kg/h per square meters of solar collectors. This paper deals with a third criteria that is, the amount of the additional energy required to achieve the required task from the solar system by means of auxiliary heating system. In where both the outlet temperature and mass flow rate play crucial role in the heat exchange between the fluid in the collector loop and the fluid in the load loop.

Comment on Alam et al. Numerical Simulation of Homogeneous–Heterogeneous Reactions through a Hybrid Nanofluid Flowing over a Rotating Disc for Solar Heating Applications. Sustainability 2021, 13, 8289

Alam et al. [...]