Prediction of house walls temperatures subjected to solar energy in Northern Malaysia

Abstract

This study focuses on prediction of house walls temperatures, at Perlis Region, Malaysia, in which the house walls are striked by solar radiation from morning until sunset. The calculations in this study are just specialized for March month, due to at the time, Perlis Region is radiated by Solar Energy to be the highest during a year. The current design of the house walls in this study is quite simple. Four walls of the house with brick material, each face to the East, West, South and North, respectively. The variation of the ambient temperature, Tair, and solar heat flux incident, qsolar, on each of wall surface throughout the day is chosen for a typical day (day representation in March month) in 1-h interval. Heat transfer coefficient inside and outside walls are calculated. Influence of radiation to the sky is also to take part in this calculation. The interior of house is maintained at Tin = 18oC at all times. In simulation, we applied the finite difference method to transient problems, where the solar heat flux ncident, qsolar, at the walls change with the time as well as the position of the sun during its movement. In this case finite difference solution of transient problems requires discretization in time in addition to discretization in space. For simulation, we use Fortran Software to solve the problem with using Gauss elimination method iteration. For the values of Solar Energy hourly, which become input data in simulation, its values being converted from the monthly average Solar Radiation at Perlis Region [2], which have been collected during 26 years (from 1979-2005) by Station Metrology, Chuping, Perlis Malaysia.