Study of Various Glass Window and Building Wall Materials in Different Climatic Zones of India for Energy Efficient Building Construction

Abstract

The commercial and residential buildings consume about 33% of energy for cooling and day lighting in India. This paper aims to present thermal performance of buildings constructed with various building and window glass materials in five different climatic zones of India. The climates considered include: hot and dry (Ahmedabad), moderate (Bangalore), cold (Guwahati), warm and humid (Madras), and composite (New Delhi). In this study, four building materials such as laterite stone, dense concrete, burnt brick, and mud brick were selected and four glasses such as clear, bronze, green, and bronze-reflective glasses were used for windows. Spectral characteristics of four glasses were measured experimentally by using Perkin-Elmer lambda 950spectrophotometer in the wavelength range of 300 -2500 nm as per ASTM standards. A mat lab code was developed to compute the solar optical properties such as transmittance and reflectance of glasses as per European standards in entire solar spectrum region. The building models were designed in Design builder 4.3.0.039 and thermal analysis was carried out in Energy plus 8.1.0.009. The solar heat gain in buildings was investigated. The results revealed that the mud brick wall building with south bronze-reflective glass window as energy saving from the least heat gain point of view among eighty building models studied. The results also showed that the mud brick wall building with bronze, green and bronze reflective window glasses reduces heat gain through wall by 2.52%, 3.83%, and 6.46% as compared to the mud brick wall building with clear glass window. The results helps in selecting energy saving combination of wall envelope and window glass materials for reducing air-conditioning loads in residential and commercial buildings of five different climatic zones of India.