Analysis of the impact of the construction of a trombe wall on the thermal comfort in a building located in wroclaw, Poland

Abstract

Changes in climate, which in recent years have become more and more visible all over the world, have forced scientists to think about technologies that use renewable energy sources. This paper proposes a passive solar heating and cooling system, which is a Trombe wall located on the southern facade of a room measuring 4.2 m x 5.2 m x 2.6 m in Wroclaw, Poland. The studies were carried out by conducting a series of numerical simulations in the Ansys Fluent 16.0 environment in order to examine the temperature distribution and air circulation in the room for two representative days during the heating and cooling period, i.e., 16 January and 15 August (for a Typical Meteorological Year). A temperature increase of 1.11 °C and a temperature decrease in the morning and afternoon hours of 2.27 °C was obtained. Two options for optimizing the passive heating system were also considered. The first involved the use of triple glazing filled with argon in order to reduce heat losses to the environment, and for this solution, a temperature level that was higher by 8.50 °C next to the storage layer and an increase in the average room temperature by 1.52 °C were achieved. In turn, the second solution involved changing the wall material from concrete to brick, which resulted in a temperature increase of 0.40 °C next to the storage layer.