Daylight, Solar Gains and Overheating St udies in a Glazed Office Building

 Abstract—The Glazed envelopes represent a possibility to use solar radiation for reduction of energy consumption in buildings, which is very important especially in regions with temperate climatic conditions. Then again, glazed facades are potential sources of unwanted overheating and glare effects that cause indoor discomfort and result in necessity for ventilation and cooling services which again increase energy consumption in buildings. The paper discusses the analysis of an overheating issues occurred in a naturally ventilated office building in Sheffield, England. The building is designed with a south facing fully glazed facade where solar energy is utilized to provide cooling within the building. In this study, indoor thermal conditions have been measured in order to determine the overheating periods during warm spring and summer months and the findings of thermal discomfort levels are examined on each floor level including open plan floor spaces. The overheating periods are determined in a duration where indoor air temperatures reach to 27oC or above for more than two consecutive hours between 9am and 6pm, and the results of the analysis are presented with a series of overheating studies. The paper also reports the findings of monitoring carried out for indoor environment in such an office building with glazed facades during their summer performance in temperate climatic conditions and presents a comparison study with computer simulation results, and discusses the further solutions suggested for optimization of indoor comfort on the basis of the investigations.. Keywords—Computer simulation, Daylighting, Glazed facade, Overheating, Solar gains, Thermal comfort. I. INTRODUCTION H E architectural trends of glazed facades have brought more daylighting and transparency into buildings, although with large glazed areas come a large amount of solar radiation which can be wisely utilized for better environmental building design. This is mainly related to areas connected to the energy consumption and indoor environmental comfort,