Verification of a simplified method for intelligent glazed façade design under different control strategies in a full-scale façade test facility – Preliminary results of a south facing single zone experiment for a limited summer period

Publication date: December 2014
Source:Building and Environment, Volume 82
Author(s): Mingzhe Liu , Kim Bjarne Wittchen , Per Kvols Heiselberg
The research aims to verify a simplified calculation method for intelligent glazed facade under different control strategies (night shutter, solar shading and natural ventilation). The method is developed to simulate the energy performance and indoor environment of an office room installed with intelligent facades. The calculation results of heating and cooling needs are verified by experimental data collected in a full-scale test facility (Cube) with south-facing façade at Aalborg University (DK) during summer period from 18th to 22nd June 2014. According to the results of the comparison, the calculated air temperature has good agreements with the measurements, with the R ² value of 0.8. Additionally, the total cooling energy consumptions measured in the experiment are 30% lower than the calculated. The experiment was conducted in the test facility with only south-facing façade and during a short summer period, which limits the verification of the method. When using water system in the chilled beam to cool down test room, it needs to be noticed that the forward water temperature should be controlled not to be higher than the air temperature of the test room when there is no cooling need in the test room; otherwise the chilled beam will release heating to the test room, which could influence the accuracy of the result. National Instrument (NI) CompactRIO is used to acquire measured data from different sensors and send signal to control building services like ventilation, heating, cooling and artificial lighting. The whole process is realized with the help of Labview.