Solar and thermo-technical properties of glazing with external blinds: Experimental analysis in a pavilion laboratory

Abstract

The current trend in architecture is associated with the use of increasingly large glazed areas in the building envelope, leading to significant problems with high solar and heat gains that negatively affect the overall energy consumption of buildings. Several sources of current research indicate that shading systems significantly impact the indoor microclimate and overall energy consumption of a building. From this point of view, this paper deals with the analysis of the thermal and solar properties of glazing in a test laboratory with several positions of the external blind system arrangement. The pavilion-type test laboratory contains three window constructions of different material bases (wood, plastic, and aluminium) with triple glazing, in front of which exterior blinds for manual control were installed. The indoor environment of the laboratory is conditioned by an air-conditioning unit to the calculation standard values of a living room. During the measurements, the position of the blinds was periodically adjusted to quantify the effect of the different slat positions on the thermal-technical and solar properties of the glazing and their effect on the indoor environment of the living room. The results show that the different positions of the blind slats significantly affect the thermal and lighting performance indoors. The paper will present the values of surface temperatures, heat flux density, glazing U-value and total solar transmittance that are affected by the shading system.