THE SIMULATION ANALYSIS OF A PROPOSED ‘HYDRONIC RADIATOR’ SYSTEM TOWARDS LOW COST HOUSING OPERATION IN TEMPERATE AND HOT TROPICAL CLIMATES

摘要

Fuel poverty is one of the global concerns affecting not only users’ financial capacityor affordability for maintaining housing operation but also the occupants’ health andwellbeing. Space heating and cooling require a relatively large amount of domesticenergy use in housing. Therefore, this study was formed with the aim to propose aninnovative approach to utilising free, clean renewable sources of energy applicable tothe space heating and cooling of housing in both cold and hot regions. Accordingly,housing test facilities based in Melbourne, Australia, and Kuching, Malaysia, wereselected and used for this study that examined the thermal performance of a proposed‘hydronic radiator’ (HR) system through simulation and onsite measurements. Thegeothermal heat capacity of a ‘vertical ground heat exchanger’ (VGHE) installed inthe house in Melbourne was examined previously by the authors and the VGHEmeasured data was also applied to this HR performance simulation. The water thatcirculates through the HRs is heated by sunlight and VGHE or cooled by night skyradiation. This study drew conclusions that the sole utilisation of renewable sourcesthrough these proposed HR space heating and cooling systems can provide thermallyaccessible or comfortable indoor living environments in both heating or coolingdominant regions. Thus, fuel poverty issues may be alleviated through HR systemapplication. The HRs can remove a ‘sensible’ portion of metabolic heat, but theycannot effectively contribute to the ‘latent’ heat removal. Thus, the future potentialuse or effect of ‘flow-through’ HRs, which are integrated into a underfloor air distribution(UFAD) plenum, was also dsicussed in this study. In the test house locatedin Melbourne, the flow-through HR UFAD system is currently under development.Therefore, the performance will be measured once the system has come into operationfor further testing.