Integrated modeling and control of the indoor built environment

Abstract

The incident and absorbed solar radiation, and consequently SHG, which is a significant but unpredictable source of heat in an indoor space, is difficult to model accurately even with detailed information about the building properties. In this thesis, we use indoor illumination measurements to estimate radiant SHG in an indoor space. This proposed approach captures the effect of directional solar radiation on SHG that cannot be captured (or estimated) by local weather station measurements. Measured illumination data from day-long experiments for several days is first compared with SHG to demonstrate strong correlation between them irrespective of sky condition. Next, a linear model to estimate SHG from illumination sensor readings is proposed and validated against calculated SHG values using the well-known Perez model. For further validation, similar experiments are performed on another testbed with dissimilar geographical location and orientation.