Analysis of Integrated Radiant Slab Heating and Cooling Systems for Residential Buildings

Abstract

This paper presents a simulation environment developed to assess the energy use specific to integrated radiant heating and cooling systems. The developed simulation environment combines a transient finite difference solution for the two-dimensional model of an integrated radiant slab heating and cooling system with a resistance capacitance (RC) thermal network model for a multifloor building. The developed model of the integrated radiant system is able to account for thermal bridge effects on the energy performance of multifloor buildings. The predictions of the developed simulation environment are verified against those obtained from a detailed whole-building energy simulation tool under specific conditions. The developed simulation environment is then used to investigate the impact of thermal bridge effects on the performance of an integrated radiant heating and cooling system. Thermal bridging can affect significantly the energy performance of the integrated radiant systems by up to 8%. Several insulation configurations have been evaluated to assess the performance of the integrated radiant systems during both heating and cooling seasons for three U.S. locations: Chicago, IL; Golden, CO; and San Francisco, CA. A combination of horizontal and edge insulations is the most effective regardless of the building location. The most effective insulation configuration achieves up to 30% in heating energy savings and 35% in cooling energy savings compared with the building with no insulation.