A novel method for calculating solar radiation on indoor human body under different weather conditions

Abstract

Indoor occupants may receive large solar heat that affect their health, productivity, and comfort. Most of previous studies focus on indoor occupants with strong direct solar radiation and weak diffuse radiation. Considering the non-uniform solar radiation distribution in the sky, this study proposes the improved HNU Solar Model, a novel method for calculating solar radiation on indoor human body under different weather conditions. The improved HNU Solar Model proposes a new calculation algorithm for calculating non-uniform radiation distributed on indoor human body under different weather conditions, via adding the human body points, windows points, and clearness index to improve the calculation accuracy; then it converts the human-body-received solar radiation into the increase in the mean radiant temperature (Delta MRT). The calculated Delta MRT values by the improved HNU Solar Model were compared with those calculated by Radiance. The results indicate that, for Delta MRT by total solar radiation on typical days with different weather conditions, the absolute error (AE) and the relative error (RE) of the improved HNU Solar Model are usually less than 1.5 °C and 15%, respectively. For the whole-year hourly Delta MRT values, the corresponding AE and RE are usually less than 1 °C and 15%, respectively. Moreover, according to the proposed model, for large-window buildings in medium-latitude regions, indoor occupants are more exposed to direct solar radiation (63%) than diffuse solar radiation (37%); while diffuse radiation can be the dominant solar heat gain of indoor occupants (up to 55%) in buildings in low-latitude regions.