Analysis of the daylight performance of a glazing system with Parallel Slat Transparent Insulation Material (PS-TIM)

Sun, Yanyi; Wu, Yupeng; Wilson, Robin

Abstract

Daylight plays an important role in the energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality of an office building. An innovative façade system where parallel transparent/translucent plastic slats are sandwiched between glass panes to form a Parallel Slat Transparent Insulation Material (PS-TIM) is proposed as a strategy to effectively increase the thermal resistance of window systems, while providing better daylight performance. In this paper, the optical performance (as defined by Bidirectional Scattering Distribution Function) of a double glazed window containing PS-TIM systems with different slat pitches (the distance between neighbouring slats), slat tilt angles, as well as the slat materials (transparent and translucent) was obtained using a ray-tracing technique. Then, the annual daylight performance of a typical office building with various PS-TIM applied under different climatic conditions and at different orientations was investigated using RADIANCE. The simulation results show that PS-TIM with translucent slats offers better daylight performance than conventional double glazing: it can increase the percentage of annual working hours under daylight, where the illuminance lies in the useful range by up to 79%. It also achieves a homogenous distribution of daylight within the internal working space and effectively reduces the possibility of glare. When applying PS- TIM at higher site latitude, smaller slat pitches are required to maximise useful daylight. Optimised PS-TIM geometry is also affected by local prevailing sky conditions.

Citation

Sun, Y., Wu, Y., & Wilson, R. (2017). Analysis of the daylight performance of a glazing system with Parallel Slat Transparent Insulation Material (PS-TIM). Energy and Buildings, 139, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2017.01.001

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 2, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Jan 5, 2017
• Publication Date: Mar 15, 2017
• Deposit Date: Apr 10, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 10, 2017
• Journal: Energy and Buildings
• Print ISSN: 0378-7788
• Electronic ISSN: 1872-6178
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 139
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2017.01.001
• Keywords: Parallel Slat Transparent Insulation Material (PS-TIM); RADIANCE; Daylight performance
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/850577
• Publisher URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378778817300075
• Contract Date: Apr 10, 2017