Passive solar house prototype design with a new bio-based material for a semi-arid climate

In this study, a passive solar house prototype was built using Trombe wall and was tested in the semi-arid region of Batna, in eastern Algeria. Traditional local materials (stone and adobe) were used for the construction of the thermal storage wall. A new local bio-based material made from date palm trunks was used for the insulation of the passive house prototype. For a better understanding of passive house heating and for a comparative study, a numerical simulation, using Fluent, was carried out. The aim of this study was to supply recommendations for improving the passive systems and to participate to the energy consumption control in the building sector. The results show that the experimental and numerical simulation results are in good agreement. The optimal orientation of the solar passive house has been determined, which is at 160° southeast. The use of local and bio-based materials has proven its effectiveness in the construction of the passive house. The thermal behavior of date palm wood has been found to be close to those of insulation materials commonly used in buildings. That means it has the same thermal insulation ability (thermal conductivity). On the other hand, the results show that the thermal efficiency of the passive solar heating system, with an adobe wall is significantly higher (50%) than that with a stone wall (30.7%).

Analytical model for the simulation of Trombe wall operation with heat storage

Passive solar systems, such as the Trombe wall, are cost-effective ways to reduce the energy consumption of buildings for heating, cooling, and ventilation. The operation of these systems can be simulated either with Building Energy Simulation Tools—BES like TRNSYS, EnergyPlus, etc either with Computational Fluid Dynamics—CFD. In both cases, the purchase of special software and/or special programming skills are required. In parallel analytical calculating tools are being developed, which also require some programming to solve an implicit system of non-linear equations but with fewer software requirements. The majority of analytical models concerns energy balance models for steady-state conditions with the result that heat storage is not taken into account, which in the case of a Trombe wall has a significant effect on the developed transport phenomena. In the present work, an analytical energy balance implicit model was developed for the simulation of the transient operation of a Trombe wall taking into account the heat storage. Using this model, the operation of a Trombe wall for 7 typical days of the year was simulated. The results are presented in terms of the daily evolution of the temperature with which the air enters the room served by the passive system, of the temperature of the Trombe wall surface adjacent to the served room, and of the airflow rate inside the air gap. These results are compared with the results that a system without heat storage would give. Both systems are assessed based on annual performance as calculated by a quasi-steady explicit model. The developed model can be used to calculate the operation of a Trombe wall as well as to supply explicit quasi-steady models with values for airflow rate inside the air gap for Trombe wall operation without mechanical ventilation. Feeding these values to a quasi-steady model developed by authors it was found that the increase of storage wall heat capacity, either changing the storage wall material, either using phase change materials, can offer better utilization of Trombe wall heat gains up to 35% yearly. Background: The present work aims to develop an analytical model for simulating the operation of a Trombe wall in a transient state taking into account the heat storage in the wall. Methods: A closed system of equations is developed, based on 5 energy balances and a series of assumptions and auxiliary relations, to calculate the operation of a wall Trombe with heat storage with an hourly time step. Results: Characteristics Trombe wall temperatures and mass flow rate through the air gap are calculated for typical days of 7 winter months. These are used for the calculation of utilizable heat gains from Trombe wall. Conclusions: The model that does not take into account heat storage predicts higher temperatures and air mass flow rate in the gap than the present model by 10%. However heat storage increase the utilizable heat gains by 35% compared with a system without heat storage.

Thermal Efficiency of Trombe Wall in the South Facade of a Frame Building

The article presents the possibility of using a mass collector-storage wall (CSW), integrated into the structure of a building with a light skeleton structure. The considered system is a proposal for an energy-saving solution that can be used in buildings with various utility purposes. The article presents the results of experimental tests of a collector-storage wall mounted in the space of the skeleton structure of the southern facade of a building for the period of one year, as well as the results of numerical simulation. In the summer, the influence of the use of heat-insulating roller shutters on limiting overheating of the chamber interior was investigated. The effect of using the roller shutters is a reduction in the average value of the heat flux by about 77%. In the winter, the energy efficiency of the wall was tested. The obtained effect is energy consumption during the heating season at a level comparable to a wall with a traditional structure with a coefficient of U = 0.30 W/(m2K). The results of the numerical tests showed high agreement with the direct results, which provides a basis for the use of such simulations in further research on the search for the optimal structure of a collector-storage wall.

Impact of a Composite Trombe Wall Incorporating Phase Change Materials on the Thermal Behavior of an Individual House with Low Energy Consumption

As the heating demands of buildings drop considerably, the use of solar walls makes increasing sense. One of the obstacles to the development of such walls is their need for on-site implementation by specialized companies. On the other hand, a storage wall is generally composed of heavy materials with high inertia, which prevents prefabrication of the solar component. To avoid this problem and allow for solar walls to be prefabricated in the factory, a novel approach to replacing this heavy wall with a lighter storage wall incorporating phase change materials (PCM) has been proposed. This paper aims to demonstrate the impact of PCM on the thermal energy performance once they have been integrated into the storage wall of the composite Trombe wall. Addressed herein will be the heat transfer exchange inside a house located in the northern part of France, where a composite Trombe wall has been fitted without PCM. Three configurations will be investigated—(1) the model house without the solar Trombe wall, defined as the reference configuration; (2) the model house integrating the concrete solar Trombe wall; and (3) the model house integrating the PCM solar Trombe wall. Two setpoint temperatures will be introduced—(a) a constant setpoint of 20 °C, and (b) a variable setpoint of 19 °C (14 h from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.) and 16 °C (10 h from 9:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.). Furthermore, three different climate conditions will be adopted to run simulations—Paris-Orly, Lyon, and Nice. Dymola/Modelica, a dynamic thermal simulation tool, will be utilized to simulate the thermal performance of these defined configurations. The results obtained, regarding a solar Trombe wall installation that applies two distinct storage walls exposed to the weather of Paris, showed similar minimizations of the one-year energy heating demand inside the bedroom, equal to roughly 20% (i.e., 20.45% of concrete storage wall and 19.90% of PCM storage wall) compared to the reference configuration (i.e., the house with no solar Trombe wall). Based on the imposed setpoint temperature by means of night and day reductions, the resulting heating energy demand in the bedroom, through application of the two storage walls (concrete and PCM) and three different climatic regions could be minimized by 20.34% in Paris, 20.20% in Lyon, and 68.10% in Nice (for the concrete storage wall) vs. the reference configuration; and by 18.79% in Paris, 19.56% in Lyon, and 55.15% in Nice (for the PCM storage wall) vs. the reference configuration.

Trombe Wall Thermal Behavior and Energy Efficiency of a Light Steel Frame Compartment: Experimental and Numerical Assessments

Buildings are seeking renewable energy sources (e.g., solar) and passive devices, such as Trombe walls. However, the thermal performance of Trombe walls depends on many factors. In this work, the thermal behavior and energy efficiency of a Trombe wall in a lightweight steel frame compartment were evaluated, making use of in situ measurements and numerical simulations. Measurements were performed inside two real scale experimental identical cubic modules, exposed to natural exterior weather conditions. Simulations were made using validated advanced dynamic models. The winter Trombe wall benefits were evaluated regarding indoor air temperature increase and heating energy reduction. Moreover, a thermal behavior parametric study was performed. Several comparisons were made: (1) Sunny and cloudy winter week thermal behavior; (2) Office and residential space use heating energy; (3) Two heating set-points (20 °C and 18 °C); (4) Thickness of the Trombe wall air cavity; (5) Thickness of the thermal storage wall; (6) Dimensions of the interior upper/lower vents; (7) Material of the thermal storage wall. It was found that a Trombe wall device could significantly improve the thermal behavior and reduce heating energy consumption. However, if not well designed and controlled (e.g., to mitigate nocturnal heat losses), the Trombe wall thermal and energy benefits could be insignificant and even disadvantageous.

Numerical and Experimental Investigations of Composite Solar Walls Integrating Sensible or Latent Heat Thermal Storage

This article studies a composite solar wall with latent storage (TES) designed to heat rooms inside buildings during the cold season. No numerical model of the composite solar wall is currently available in the Dymola/Modelica software library. The first objective of this work is to develop one such model. The article describes the elementary components, along with the equations that allow modeling the heat transfers and storage phenomena governing both the thermal behavior and performance of the solar wall. This model was built by assembling various existing basic elements from the software’s “Building” library (e.g., models of heat transfer by convection, radiation and conduction) and then creating new elements, such as the storage element incorporating the phase change material (PCM). To validate this solar wall model, numerical results are compared to experimental data stemming from a small-scale composite solar wall manufactured in our laboratory, and the experimental set-up could be tested under real weather conditions. After verifying the level of confidence in the model, the energy performance of two solar walls, one with a conventional storage wall (sensible heat storage) the other containing a PCM (the same as in the experiment), are compared. The result indicates that the solar wall incorporating a PCM does not in this case release any more energy in the room to be heated.