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Article history: Participation of the radiation and free convection in the heat transferred from the ceiling surface of a room
Received 22 May 2010 to other internal surfaces has been investigated in this study. A model enclosure representing a room
Received in revised form 15 June 2010 was constructed and equipped with a radiant ceiling heating system. In order to have a thermal map over
Accepted 22 June 2010
both internal and external surfaces of the enclosure, 108 elements were specified over the walls, floor and
ceiling of the enclosure. Temperatures at both sides of the elements were measured using an infrared
Keywords:
thermometer and k-type thermocouples under steady state heat flow condition. Using the measured
Radiant ceiling heating system
temperatures, conductive heat transfer through the compartment elements was first calculated. A model
Combined radiation and free convection
based on the net-radiation method was employed to compute the radiation exchanges between internal
surfaces of the elements. Convection participation was also specified using radiation and conduction for
each element. Based on the results, more than 90% of the heat is transferred by the radiation from the
heated ceiling to the other surfaces of enclosure. The participation of the radiation increases slightly as
the ceiling temperature is increased.
© 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
0378-7788/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2010.06.017
2078 M. Rahimi, A. Sabernaeemi / Energy and Buildings 42 (2010) 2077–2082
Nomenclature
Greek symbols
ˇ angle (see Fig. 4)
ı Kronecker delta
ε emissivity of the element surface Fig. 1. Schematic of the experimental rig.
reflection coefficient
Boltzmann constant (W/m2 K4 )
the cavity. Multilayer pipe of 16 mm nominal diameter was used in
a spiral pattern in the surface heating system. This pattern and its
Subscripts
dimensions are schematically shown in Fig. 2. The pipe was covered
c convection
with a thin aluminum plate to obtain more uniform temperature at
i inner surface
the surface of the heating system. Hot water was supplied and cir-
j number of an element
culated through the pipe using a water heater package. In order to
k number of an element
obtain a reasonable temperature distribution inside the enclosure,
o outer surface
supplied hot water temperature was controlled by a thermostat.
r radiation
The inlet hot water temperature ranged from 45 ◦ C to 70 ◦ C. The
w wall, water
temperature of the water was recorded using two k-type thermo-
couples at the inlet and outlet of the heating pipe. The water flow
rate through the pipe was adjusted to be 0.0712 kg/s and it was
and the heat transfer from or to the enclosure walls takes place monitored by a flow meter during the experiments.
mainly by the convection. However, as a result of the heater posi- The heating system was turned on to achieve a steady state
tion, the energy exchange by radiation becomes significant for the condition in heat flow throughout the enclosure before collecting
lower compartment walls. the experimental data. Depending on the surrounding temperature
Radiation could be the predominant mechanism in the heat and the thermostat setting, steady state condition was established
energy transferred between surfaces having different tempera- after about 5–6 h in which the indoor temperature was almost con-
tures. It could be evaluated quantitatively in the case of constant stant. Fig. 3 shows the temperature variation at the center of the
temperature assumption for the surfaces. However, a temperature enclosure. It can be seen that the indoor temperature goes up and
distribution rather than a constant one is established over the sur- then approaches a constant value after a relatively long period of
faces of an enclosure using a heating system. For this reason, the time. Similar variations exist for indoor temperature evaluated at
heat energy exchange by convection and radiation between differ- different points inside the enclosure. In order to have a thermal
ent surfaces of an enclosure was investigated in this study. Steady map of the inner and outer surfaces of the enclosure, 104 elements
state heat flow condition was established inside an enclosure
using a radiant ceiling heating system. The temperature distri-
bution over the internal and external surfaces of the enclosure
was measured. Conduction through the elements of the compart-
ments along with the radiation and convection over the inner
surfaces of the elements were quantitatively examined. Average
heat energy exchange between different surfaces of the enclosure
by the radiation mechanism and convection mechanism was sepa-
rately presented for different temperatures of the heating system.
The results of this study could be useful in the design and opera-
tion of a radiant ceiling heating system in relation to the building
geometries.
Fig. 3. Air temperature variation at the center of the room to achieve steady state
condition.
surface Aj and N is the number of the discrete surfaces. Eqs. (3)
and (4) are individually substituted into Eq. (1) to eliminate qi,k and
were specified on the walls of the enclosure. The number of the provide the following two heat balance equations for Qk in terms
elements examined on each vertical wall was 22 and the number of qo,k :
of elements which were considered on the floor and ceiling of the
enclosure was 16 (see Fig. 1). The temperatures on both inner and εk
Qk = Ak . · ( · Tk4 − qo,k ) (5)
outer surfaces of the enclosure elements were measured using an 1 − εk
infrared non-contact thermometer. Also, eight k-type thermocou-
ples were embedded in the floor to measure the temperature on
N
were obtained using the net-radiation method of Hottel [11]. − Fk−j · = (ık−j − Fk−j ) · · Tj4 (7)
εj εj Aj
Details of the method can also be found in Siegel and Howell [12]. j=1 j=1
Using this method, heat energy to be supplied to/from each dis-
where ık−j is the Kronecker delta defined as ık−j = 1 when k = j and
crete surface area having constant temperature is determined when
ık−j = 0 when k =/ j. This equation is applied for all of the elements
the surface temperatures of the elements inside the enclosure are
of the enclosure. The view factor, Fk−j can be determined using the
specified. The radiation model assumes opaque, diffuse and gray
following relation:
surfaces, a non-participating medium and uniform incident and,
hence reflected energy flux and temperature. Heat balance at the 1 cos ˇk · cos ˇj
surface of an element having the area Ak is: Fk−j = · 2
dAj dAk (8)
Ak · Skj
Ak Aj
Qk = qk · Ak = (qo,k − qi,k ) × Ak (1)
where the quantities qi,k and qo,k are the rates of incoming and where ˇ and Skj are shown in Fig. 4. The view factors are obtained
outgoing radiant energy per unit surface area, respectively. The by numerically integrating Eq. (8). When the surface temperatures
quantity Q is the energy flux supplied by some external means to of the elements are specified, the right side of Eq. (7) is known
the surface to make up for the net radiative loss and thereby main- and there are N simultaneous equations for the unknown Q val-
tain the specified surface temperature. Another equation results ues. In the computations, the measured surface temperatures were
from the fact that the energy flux leaving the surface is composed employed to obtain the radiative heat transfer rates.
of emitted plus reflected energy. This gives:
4. Computation of radiative, convective and conductive
qo,k = εk · · Tk4 + k · qi,k (2)
heat fluxes
Substituting the relation; k = 1 − ˛k = 1 − εk which is used for an
opaque and gray surface, into Eq. (2) then gives: View factors for the discrete surfaces were first calculated using
Eq. (8). The number of the view points was N(N − 1)/2 and the sum-
qo,k = εk · · Tk4 + (1 − εk ) · qi,k (3)
mation rule for each discrete surface satisfied with maximum error
The incident heat flux qi,k is derived from the portions of the of 1%. Eq. (7) was used to form a linear set of N equations based
energy leaving the discrete surfaces inside the enclosure that arrive on which radiative heat transfer rate was specified for all discrete
at the kth element surface. Considering the view factor reciprocity surfaces. The sum of net radiation between discrete surfaces of the
relation, the incident energy can be given as: enclosure is zero.
N
N
where Fk−j is the view factor, representing the fraction of the energy This equation was also established with maximum error of 1%
which leaves the element surface Ak and arrives at the element for different elements.
2080 M. Rahimi, A. Sabernaeemi / Energy and Buildings 42 (2010) 2077–2082
The wall heat fluxes are shown in Fig. 5. Considering the radia-
tion, convection and conduction, the energy balance for an element
can be expressed as:
q = qc + qr (10)
Table 1
The uncertainty parameters for the inlet water temperature of 65 ◦ C.
Divided this by the value of the radiative heat flux, Q̇1 , the uncer-
tainty percent is evaluated for this parameter. Similar equations
are used in the uncertainty evaluation for the other radiative heat
fluxes. In the case of inlet water temperature of 65 ◦ C, the uncer-
tainty parameters are shown in Table 1. The uncertainty in the
conductive heat fluxes was less than 2% and for the convective heat
fluxes was in the range of 3–12% considering mean temperature for
the surfaces of the enclosure.
6. Concluding remarks
and using under-floor heating system reveals that the participa- [6] H. Nouanegue, A. Muftuoglu, E. Bilgen, Conjugate heat transfer by natural con-
tion of the radiation in heat transferred from the floor surface to vection, conduction and radiation in open cavities, International Journal of Heat
and Mass Transfer 51 (2008) 6054–6062.
the other internal surfaces of the enclosure is relatively higher and [7] J Miriel, L. Serres, A. Trombe, Radiant ceiling panel heating–cooling systems:
this participation decreases as the floor temperature is increased. experimental and simulated study of the performances, thermal comfort and
energy consumptions, Applied Thermal Engineering 22 (2002) 1861–1873.
[8] F. Causone, S.P. Corgnati, M. Filippi, B.W. Olesen, Experimental evaluation of
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