Abstract
Daylight plays a significant role in sustainable building design. The purpose of this paper was to investigate the impact of manual solar shades on indoor visual comfort. A developed stochastic model for manual solar shades was modeled in Building Controls Virtual Test Bed, which was coupled with EnergyPlus for co-simulation. Movable solar shades were compared with two unshaded windows. Results show that movable solar shades have more than half of the working hours with a comfortable illuminance level, which is about twice higher than low-e windows, with a less significant daylight illuminance fluctuation. For glare protection, movable solar shades increase comfortable visual conditions by about 20% compared to low-e windows. Moreover, the intolerable glare perception could be reduced by more than 20% for movable solar shades.
Highlights
Sustainable building design requires a comprehensive consideration of daylight utilization, which has improvements on view to outdoor [1], visual and psychological comfort [2], health [3], and working efficiency [4], and windows are considered a fundamental element of building facades
The results showed that offices with diagonal fins and egg crate shading devices performed better compared to the office with vertical fins
Movable solar shades have a small negative impact, with more hours of daylight illuminance less than 300 lux, their positive impact of reducing potential glare risk is more significant with a reduction of daylight illuminance higher than 2000 lux by more than 1000 h
Summary
Sustainable building design requires a comprehensive consideration of daylight utilization, which has improvements on view to outdoor [1], visual and psychological comfort [2], health [3], and working efficiency [4], and windows are considered a fundamental element of building facades. To have a balance between these aspects, solar shading devices are usually used, which can be designed to prevent overheating, to reduce heating losses and cooling loads, and to control the visual environment (glare, daylight, contrast, view towards and from the exterior). Ahmed [6] compared three fixed shading devices (vertical fins, diagonal fins and egg crate) in terms of thermal and daylighting performance. The results showed that offices with diagonal fins and egg crate shading devices performed better compared to the office with vertical fins. Research carried out by Cristina et al [7] suggested the use of shading devices as passive control systems in improving indoor thermal conditions. Fixed shading devices are not efficient in controlling dynamic daylight illuminance
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
