Design and Simulation of the Solar Optical Guide Lighting and Ventilation System in a Building

Abstract

With the continuous development of society, power consumption for the lighting and the ventilation in buildings accounts for more and more proportion of the total energy supply. With the aim of relieving the conflict between the fast-growing urbanization and power limitation, a solar optical guide lighting and ventilation (SOGLV) system combining natural lighting and natural ventilation is proposed in this study. The simulations are carried out to analyze the performance of optical guiding at different times by Monte Carlo method. Meanwhile, the performance of ventilation is simulated under different absorbed heat fluxes by Fluent. It is found from the research that the SOGLV system can achieve the goal of lighting and ventilation. The average indoor illumination intensity on the ground floor first increases then decreases within a day. The heat flux on the optical guide pipe wall appears in a block pattern. The maximum velocity is linearly correlated with the average absorbed heat flux on the optical guide wall, ranging from 0.90 m/s to 1.02 m/s.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province [No.: BK20201161], the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [No.: B210202128], and the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Nos.: 51506043 and 51676063].

Notes on contributors

Jialing Qiu

Jialing Qiu obtained her master’s degree from the College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Hohai University. Her current research interest is the solar thermal engineering.

Fei Cao

Fei Cao is an associate professor in College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Hohai University. His current research interests include solar thermal engineering and solar photocatalytic hydrogen production.

Liang Ma

Liang Ma obtained her bachelor’s degree from College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Hohai University. She is now working in Newtry Global as a mechanical engineer. Her current research interest is the solar thermal engineering.

Jianbo Bai

Jianbo Bai is a full professor in College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Hohai University. His current research interests include the solar thermal engineering and heat transfer enhancement in nanofluids.

Li Sun

Li Sun is an associate professor in College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Hohai University. His current research interest is applied thermodynamics.