DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE OF AN ORIGINAL FRENCH SOLAR HEATING SYSTEM: DIRECT SOLAR FLOOR HEATING

Direct Solar Floor Heating ( DSFH) is an original solar heating system made of a set of water circulation pipes embedded in a concrete floor which is directly connected to the solar collectors without heat exchanger or any other storage. The concrete slab is thick enough to be used as storage. Performance of many installations in France have been measured and give satisfaction. Furthermore, a simplified sizing method has been proposed. We set forth simulations with EMGP2, in order to improve both of these results and to optimize the economic and technical performances of the system. An optimum size which the method did not anticipate is indeed found if we correctly took into account the function of the floor in the system. Two points have to be supervised: comfort and regulation for which some preliminary informations are given. A methodology is proposed in order to analyse bare results from measured data.