QUESTION:
I am currently undertaking a solar access study on a building using ECOTECT and wish to determine the heat intensity (W/m2) penetrating into various rooms. Is there a way to determine this using ECOTECT ?
ANSWER:
If you select one or more window objects and then choose the Calculate » Solar Exposure menu item, ECOTECT can calculate either the instantaneous or cumulative incident solar radiation FALLING ON the selected windows. This is given as a W & W/m2 or Wh & Wh/m2 value.
If you need the amount actually entering through the glass (accounting for refractive index effects and the shading coefficients), use the Calculate » Thermal Analysis menu item. In the Thermal Calculation group, select the Hourly Heat Gains/Losses item and then choose a day of the year. You can then see an hourly profile of direct solar gains into each zone. If you select a particular zone, its floor area is shown in the text box immediately below the graph, so it should be relatively easy to copy/paste this into a spreadsheet and automatically convert total solar gains into W/m2 floor area (if that is what you need).
Direct solar gain: doesn't account for solar protection
Hi!
I have a problem seeing the effect of a shading surface on the direct solar gain of a south exposed zone. When I put or take off a surface that shades the window, i see the difference in the Solar exposure item (on the percentage of shadind of my window) but in the thermal analysis item, my direct solar gain doesn't change!!!
Is there a problem on my model?
Thanks
Solar Gain + Shading
Salut Caroline,
It is a bit hard to see what happens without the model...
I can only think of a couple of things:
1. Make sure that you are actually turning OFF (the sun icon) the layer on wich the shading device is on; hidding the layer (the light bulb icon) will not actually keep it out of the calculations.
2. make sure to re-run the Interzonal Adjacency calculation: it will re-calculate the shading mask for your model and pick up the fact that the shading device is here or not. This is somewhat related to the first point since when you turn OFF the Zone your device is on, Ecotect should ask you to recalculate the IZA.
Let me know if you get lucky - if not, please send me the file.
Best,
Olivier