Analytical Simulation of the Passive Solar System

The computer simulation is a useful tool for heat transfer analysis of the passive solar systems especially in preliminary performance evaluation, implementation, and/or optimization of the system configurations in the course of the development and constructive design.

The present article describes advantages and conditions of an application of the simulation scheme to the passive solar system analysis, along with design criterion and requirements for analytical heat transfer models for the passive solar system simulations.

A state-of-the-art program, ESPAR, used for the simulations, has been developed for the elementary heat transfer analysis of the passive solar systems constructed as a part of a single room residential building, and formulated around a finite differential heat conductive model combined with typical passive solar system submodels.

Analytical results by ESPAR for the direct gain system with sensible or latent heat storage wall and Trombe wall system are presented comparatively with measured results.