Hi there, I’ve been trying to simulate the impact of solar load on the thermal comfort inside a naturally ventilated building. I used an external flow volume since this allowed the simulation to capture the shading effect provided by the balcony. The problem of using the external flow volume is that heat from the solar load does not appear to transfer through the wall. I believe this is because the interior and exterior faces of the wall are treated as separate entities instead of a single solid.
Are there other ways to simulate solar gain with shading?
Also, why are solids not allowed for thermal comfort and solar load simulations even though they are under conjugate heat transfer analysis and would this feature be implemented in the future?
Here is the link to my project: https://www.simscale.com/workbench/?pid=6698192348442784811
Thank you.
Hi, and thanks for using the forum for your feedback and questions.
You are right, we currently have multiple solutions for similar problems: Convective HT which is aimed mainly for thermal comfort and ventilation, and two Conjugate HT solvers, which are aimed towards cooling of products such as electronics. Please be aware that we are working on unifying and simplifying the solvers in the future.
Regarding the external heat load and heat transfer through the wall, you would need a conjugate transfer solver, but then you will lose on the radiation front. My suggestion is to perform two simulations, one external and one internal, transferring the heat load measured on the wall from the first to the second.
When transferring the heat load, do I measure the average internal solar load on the wall and assign this value as an additional heat source under convective HT or is it better to use a conjugate HT analysis for both the internal and external flow volume?
