Heat Transfer in Buildings

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Civil Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2022) | Viewed by 9967

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering & Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney, Broadway, NSW 2007, Australia
Interests: solar thermal energy technology; heat transfer in buildings; computational fluid dynamics; boundary layer theory; transport in porous media; magnetic convection; modeling of particle deposition, clearance, and interaction with lung surfactant; numerical modeling of deformation issue of RBCs related to their aging
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Guest Editor
School of Civil Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China
Interests: heat transfer in buildings; natural convection; ventilation; flow dynamics; flow visualization; measurement of thermal environment

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Guest Editor
College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Interests: urban and built environment; urban climate; urban heat island; urban ventilation; green, healthy and low-carbon buildings and cities; disease control in crowded environment

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Building energy consumption has reached approximately 30% of the global energy consumption, which is very large and creates a huge challenge to achieve a global plan of energy conservation and emission reduction or even carbon neutralization in the future. Accordingly, it is important to assess energy consumption in buildings for engineers, designers and businesses in the society of buildings. More than 50% of energy consumption in buildings is related to heating, cooling and ventilation, which are significantly affected by heat transfer in buildings. Further, understanding of heat transfer in buildings is of practical significance and is interesting for researchers.

To obtain insights into heat transfer in buildings, researchers have performed many studies of natural convection and ventilation in buildings through flow visualization and heat transfer measurement. However, further studies devoted to identifying dynamics, characterizing flows and quantifying heat transfer are always expected in order to present new conceptions and make new ideas for heat transfer in buildings.

To reduce the energy consumption of buildings, engineers have also devoted themselves to developing innovative technologies and new generation designs of buildings. Accordingly, further investigations of various strategies and optimizations through adopting new energy components, solar roofs, solar chimneys and BIPV and BAPV design are being anticipation by designers to achieve thermal comfort and energy reduction of buildings.

As mentioned above, the Special Issue is aimed at collecting high-level research on such fields as: heat transfer in buildings, convection, ventilation, flow visualization, measurement of thermal environment, assessment of thermal comfort, utilization of solar roofs, solar chimneys and energy components in buildings, and the role of BIPV and BAPV in energy consumption and emission reduction.

Dr. Suvash C. Saha
Prof. Dr. Feng Xu
Prof. Dr. Yifan Fan
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • heat transfer in buildings
  • convection and ventilation
  • water heating
  • phase change materials (PCM) for buildings
  • thermal bridge
  • solar roof and chimney
  • BIPV and BAPV
  • high performance buildings
  • coupling heat and moisture transfer in buildings
  • carbon emission estimation and reduction in buildings

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 5003 KiB  
Article
Numerical Study of Mixed Convection and Heat Transfer in Arc-Shaped Cavity with Inner Heat Sources
by Huimin Cui, Haoran An, Wenyue Wang, Zhiming Han, Bo Hu, Feng Xu, Qingkuan Liu and Suvash C. Saha
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(2), 1029; https://doi.org/10.3390/app13021029 - 12 Jan 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1280
Abstract
The mixed convection and heat transfer in enclosures with inner heat sources widely exist in building ventilation, cooling of nuclear reactors and cooling of electronic components. In this study, the heat transfer characteristics of mixed convection in an open arc-shaped cavity with double [...] Read more.
The mixed convection and heat transfer in enclosures with inner heat sources widely exist in building ventilation, cooling of nuclear reactors and cooling of electronic components. In this study, the heat transfer characteristics of mixed convection in an open arc-shaped cavity with double heat sources under the condition of bottom heating and top wall cooling are studied by two-dimensional numerical simulation using ANSYS FLUENT. The influence of the Reynolds number on flow structures, transient characteristics and heat transfer characteristics in the arc cavity was studied by changing inlet wind speed. As the Reynolds number changes from 2.19 × 105 to 4.38 × 107, the flow in the fully developed stage will evolve from turbulent flow to periodic flow and then to steady state flow. In this study, the critical Reynolds number intervals for three different flow states are given. The increase in the Reynolds number enhances the heat convection in the cavity. The difference between heat convection and heat conduction is increased, which has a linear relationship with the Reynolds number. As the Reynolds number increases, the heat removal capacity in the middle region of the double heat sources is not always enhanced, which is due to the sudden change in flow structure and flow state around Re = 1.18 × 107. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heat Transfer in Buildings)
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13 pages, 5012 KiB  
Article
Characteristics of Urban Heat Island in China and Its Influences on Building Energy Consumption
by Shaopeng Wang, Zihan Wang, Yicheng Zhang and Yifan Fan
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(15), 7678; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12157678 - 30 Jul 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1540
Abstract
Urban heat island (UHI) draws more attention as it affects not only the health of residents but also the energy consumption of buildings at the city scale. To achieve carbon neutrality goals, it is crucial to better understand the mechanism of the UHI [...] Read more.
Urban heat island (UHI) draws more attention as it affects not only the health of residents but also the energy consumption of buildings at the city scale. To achieve carbon neutrality goals, it is crucial to better understand the mechanism of the UHI influences on building energy consumption. The characteristics of urban heat island intensity (UHII) and the relationship between the UHII effect and building electricity and related coal consumption were analyzed, based on the long period of monitoring data with hourly weather data from 1 January to 31 December 2019. Results show that a strong correlation between the annual mean UHII and the median daily mean UHII exists. The synthetic diurnal UHII of most cities presents a U-shaped variation trend. In different building climate zones in China, namely, severe cold region (SCR), cold region (CR), hot summer cold winter region (HSCWR), hot summer and warm winter region (HSWWR), and mild region (MR), the influences of UHII on building energy consumption were analyzed. The existence of UHI reduces building energy consumption in 96.7% of SCR cities and 60.8% of CR cities, while in HSCWR, HSWWR, and MR cities, the percentage of cities where the building energy consumption is increased by UHI is 69.4%, 80%, and 63.6%, respectively. Urban climate strongly influences building energy consumption, indicating that it should be considered and analyzed in detail for making future urban development or carbon emission reduction strategies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heat Transfer in Buildings)
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19 pages, 59040 KiB  
Article
Calculation of View Factors for Building Simulations with an Open-Source Raytracing Tool
by Sarith Subramaniam, Sabine Hoffmann, Sridhar Thyageswaran and Greg Ward
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(6), 2768; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12062768 - 08 Mar 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 5222
Abstract
Longwave radiative heat transfer is a key determinant of energy consumption in buildings and view factor calculations are therefore required for the detailed simulation of heat transfer between buildings and their environment as well as for heat exchange within rooms. Typically, these calculations [...] Read more.
Longwave radiative heat transfer is a key determinant of energy consumption in buildings and view factor calculations are therefore required for the detailed simulation of heat transfer between buildings and their environment as well as for heat exchange within rooms. Typically, these calculations are either derived through analytical means or performed as a part of the simulation process. This paper describes the methodology for employing RADIANCE, a command-line open-source raytracing software, for performing view factor calculations. Since it was introduced in the late-1980s, RADIANCE has been almost exclusively employed as the back-end engine for lighting simulations. We discuss the theoretical basis for calculating view factors through Monte Carlo calculations with RADIANCE and propose a corresponding workflow. The results generated through RADIANCE are validated by comparing them with analytical solutions. The fundamental methodology proposed in this paper can be scaled up to calculate view factors for more complex, practical scenarios. Furthermore, the portability, multi-processing functionality and cross-platform compatibility offered by RADIANCE can also be employed in the calculation of view factors. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heat Transfer in Buildings)
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