The most pleasant architectures are known as systems which are able to maintain great correlation with nature. These systems make the best out of natural potentials to maintain thermal comfort for buildings occupants. To that aim, the first step is to manage the effect of outside weather condition on building’s envelope. DSF is known as architects’ solution to control incoming wind speed, manag...

The paper describes the detailed techno-commercial analysis done on a 46 m2 solar air heating system developed in a food processing industry. The solar air heating system was connected to an indoor drier through a duct. A detailed performance analysis was undertaken on the system by loading with 75 kg of ripe mango flake. The product loaded was uniform in size having a thickness of 4mm. On a cl...

A novel material open to warm air stays below ambient temperature under maximum solar intensities of mid-summer. It is found to be 11 °C cooler than a commercial white cool roof nearby. A combination of specially chosen polymers and a silver thin film yields values near 100% for both solar reflectance, and thermal emittance at infrared wavelengths from 7.9 to 13 μm.

Shading the greenhouses is necessary in summer to reduce the solar radiation load. This however generates a considerable amount of thermal radiation heat load that needs to be removed via cooling systems. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of different shading configurations on the solar and thermal radiation in a greenhouse. Nets at four different locations were employed to shade the roof...

A low cost, simple solar heating system consisting of an active collector with an In-Floor Heat Distribution and Storage (IFHDS) system was developed in response to the energy crisis of the 1970s. A two-dimensional finite difference model was developed and used to simulate the performance of IFHDS system cross-sections. Simulation runs were conducted with a steady-periodic model for the tempera...

The efficiency of solar photovoltaic (SPV) panels depends upon the amount of solar irradiance and spectral content. SPV panels are being widely used because of their economic and environmental merits. The performance of SPV panels gets degraded due to factors like air pollution, bird droppings, dust, snow accumulation, etc. An automatic and integrated solar panel cleaning robotic arm (SPCRA) wi...

Solar-heated air can be used in a wide variety of applications, but it is a limited resource. Only so much sunshine strikes each square foot of the earth, and a well-built collector system will typically deliver about half of this energy to a house in the form of heat. The way this heat is used often means the difference between a useful, cost-effective system and one that never seems to perfor...

The solar façade of the FIAT Research Center (CRF) was realized recently near Turin in Italy, under cooperation between CRF and Politecnico di Milano. The photovoltaic elements, that has a total power of 19.5 kWp, produces electric energy, while the forced air circulation beneath the modules recovers the thermal fraction of captured solar radiation and cools the cells as well. The electricity g...

A hybrid solar panel has been invented to integrate photovoltaic (PV) cells onto a substrate through a functionally graded material (FGM) with water tubes cast inside, through which water serves as both heat sink and solar heat collector. Therefore, the efficiency of PV cells can be improved by temperature control while the heat conduction to the substrate can be minimized for saving of air con...