THE MEASURED PERFORMANCE AND COMPUTER SIMULATIONOF TWO UNHEATED PASSIVE SOLAR TEST CELLSIN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

摘要

The purpose of this study has been to examine the performance of passive solar structures in the mostlv cloudy climate of the Pacific Northwest. Only a small amount of detailed research has been done to determine the use of passive solar energy in this region, primarily because it has been supposed that building conditioning by solar energy is not practical in this climatic -one. In this study, the measured temperat ure response of two passive solar structures -- a direct gain cell and a Trombe wall cell -has been sought. In general these test cells have performed very much as expected. The direct gain cell has tended to show larger temperature oscillations, whereas the Trombe wall cell has exhibited a delaying (or lagging) effect of heat penetration into the space behind the wall due to the capacitance of the wall mass. Based on the temperature measurements, neither cell has appeared to perform significantly better than the other. The average interior temperatures of the cell have been within the comfort zone, although the temperature swings have sometimes been rather large. IOC (18F). The authors anticipate that improvements in the storage mass may help to reduce these fluctuations. Generally, the heat fluxes have been found to be low in both cells. In addition to the measurements of the thermal performances of these cells, the authors have conducted simulations of the test cells using the program UWEN- The predicted values correlated well with the measured values. There have been some differences in magnitudes, but the form and time dependence of the basic heat transfer processes have shown good agreement with observed behavior patterns. Thereby, the authors have shown a usefull congruence, for the purposes of comparative design analysis in this region, between the meastired and predicted values using a well-constructed simulation device.