Preliminary Study of Passive Solar Heating Performance and Visual Clarity for a Transwall Structure

摘要

The thermal performance of a new passive solar heating system called Transwall has been compared to that of Trombe wall and direct gain systems using thermal network models. The Transwall system is a visually transparent modular water wall which thermalizes a high percentage of incident solar radiation within a water based storage medium by absorption of the radiation in both the water and in a semitransparent plate positioned between the light transmitting walls of the water-filled modules. The Transwall structure allows vision to the exterior through the solar gain fenestration and provides a direct gain contribution to the building heating requirements. Because of the strong light attenuation by the Transwall, the direct gain operation of the system does not suffer from severe glare and photodegradation problems which occur in some direct gain interiors. (ERA citation 05:011654)