E – 1702 Design Analysis of Passive Solar Heating for Buildings

This course discusses guidelines that should enable the designer to specify initial values for the design variables that are most strongly related to energy-efficient performance in passive solar buildings. Before proceeding any further with the design, an analysis that provides an estimate of the building’s auxiliary heat requirements should be conducted. By repeating the analysis with different values of the primary variables it is possible to fine tune the original design in a manner that is consistent with the performance and economic goals of the project. The design-analysis procedure presented in this chapter is quick and accurate and, therefore, well suited to the design-refinement process. Before discussing the procedure, we present a set of definitions below that will aid the reader in his study of passive solar design analysis.