Effect of the thermal insulation layer location on wall dynamic thermal response rate under the air-conditioning intermittent operation

Abstract

A B S T R A C TAlthough the air-conditioning intermittent operation is widely used in buildings, more attention is focused on the air-conditioning continuous operation in the whole building to simplify energy conservation design, and thereby, the operation method inconsistence of air-conditioning must lead to the large difference between actual value and design value of energy consumption. According to this situation, in order to explore the wall energy conservation difference under the continuous and intermittent operation of air-conditioning, a experiment is built to analyze the effect of the thermal insulation layer location on wall dynamic thermal response rate. Experimental result shows that under the air-conditioning intermittent operation, wall cold storage is the main source of air-conditioning load formed by walls and the wall internal layer has the significant effect on the wall dynamic thermal response performance. And the closer to wall inner surface for the thermal insulation layer, the lower the inner surface temperature and the higher the wall thermal response rate. Meanwhile, the internal thermal insulation wall has the smallest heat flow value, which is less 35-86% than external thermal insulation wall and the sandwich thermal insulation wall, although they have the same heat transfer coefficients.

Composition of cooling load formed by non-transparent envelopes of a common office building under air-conditioning intermittent operation

“…Meng et al (2018c) compared thermal performance of five typical wall insulation configurations with the same heat transfer coefficients under air-conditioning intermittent operation and proposed that the interior insulation was more suitable for the wall insulation configuration with the highest energysaving ratio of 52%-65%. Meanwhile, the experimental result of Zhang et al (2017a) showed that the interior thermal insulation wall had the smallest heat flow value, which was 35%-86% less than the exterior thermal insulation wall and the sandwich thermal insulation wall under air-conditioning intermittent operation. Similar conclusions were obtained by the experimental research of Meng et al (2018c) on the thermal performance analysis of interior walls under heating intermittent operation in the same experimental platform with Zhang et al (2017a).…”

“…Meanwhile, the experimental result of Zhang et al (2017a) showed that the interior thermal insulation wall had the smallest heat flow value, which was 35%-86% less than the exterior thermal insulation wall and the sandwich thermal insulation wall under air-conditioning intermittent operation. Similar conclusions were obtained by the experimental research of Meng et al (2018c) on the thermal performance analysis of interior walls under heating intermittent operation in the same experimental platform with Zhang et al (2017a). Ibrahim et al (2012) optimized the position and thickness of insulation layers in the exterior wall for climates in the coastal Mediterranean zone and in the inland plateau of Lebanon by numerical simulation.…”

“…Table 1. A summary on the thermal performance analysis on non-transparent envelopes under air-conditioning intermittent operation (Barrios et al, 2012;Hou et al, 2018;Ibrahim et al, 2012;Li et al, 2018;Meng et al, 2018aMeng et al, , 2018bMeng et al, , 2018cRuan et al, 2015;Yan et al, 2015;Yuan et al, 2017;Zhang et al, 2017a) Aimed at this, a common office building was chosen and inner surface heat flows in the studied room were measured under the intermittent different groups of airconditioning in the adjacent rooms. Three typical rooms with the different areas were considered with one and two exterior walls, and combined with envelop areas and heat flow values, the heat transfer capacity through the different envelopes could be gained to analyze the composition characteristic on cooling load formed by non-transparent envelopes of a common office building under air-conditioning intermittent operation.…”

Application of Phase Change Materials and Conventional Thermal Mass for Control of Roof-Generated Cooling Loads

“…Today, in response to the growing worldwide interest in energy dynamics, building designers, many research institutions, government agencies, and energy companies are rediscovering the principles of building thermal response [1][2][3][4][5] and passive solar architecture [6,7] which have been known for half a century [8,9]. This is in addition to a variety of more or less advanced building energy efficiency strategies based on thermal mass [10][11][12][13]. The terms thermal mass, thermal capacitance, and building thermal response have recently gained wide interest in discussions about the temperature buffering effects and reduction of the rate of changes in internal comfort…”

Effects of Configurations of Internal Walls on the Threshold Value of Operation Hours for Intermittent Heating Systems

“…Tsilingiris [10] investigated the effect of thermal resistance and heat capacity as well as thermal constant on the heat exchange through the building envelope by implicit finite-difference method. Meng [11] and Zhang [12] analyzed the temperature response rate and the heat flow of different wall insulation forms under intermittent and continuous operation in summer by simulative and experimental method, respectively. Yuan et al [13] analyzed the effects of insulation and thermal resistance on dynamic heat transfer of building walls by combining mathematical models and numerical solutions.…”