F. Convertino et al.
Building and Environment 177 (2020) 106875
Fig. 12. LWIR radiative energy balance at the external surface of the BW and of the CW in summer daytime (a), summer night-time (b), autumn daytime (c), autumn
night-time (d), winter daytime (e) and winter night-time (f).
the worst agreement with the measured data, respectively (Figs. 5, 7 and
9). The energy emitted by BW surface was generally higher than the
absorbed one (Figs. 5(a), 7(a) and 9(a)). Unlike BW surface, at daytime
the absorbed energy was higher than the emitted one for the CW surface.
This behaviour was recorded in the three periods (Figs. 6, 8 and 10). At
night-time, the difference between the emitted and the absorbed energy
increased from summer to winter for the CW surface (Figs. 6, 8 and 10).
The emitted energy for the external surface of the BW was slightly higher
than for the GL in the three periods (Figs. 5, 7 and 9), due to the higher
temperature.
Focusing on the energy performance of the BW and of the CW, the
LWIR radiative energy balance at the external surface of the two walls
was evaluated.
The balance was calculated as absorbed flux minus emitted flux by
Eq. (7). The balance is plotted in Fig. 11(a) for summer period, in Fig. 11
(b) for autumn period and in Fig. 11(c) for winter period. The amplitude
of the curve oscillations, in the case of the CW, resulted to be less than in
the BW.
The CW surface gained less energy than the BW, in the morning of
the summer days (Fig. 11(a)). The CW surface gained and lost energy in
the three seasons (Fig. 11), while the BW surface always lost energy in
winter Fig. 11(c).
It is useful to compare the energetic behaviour of the two walls in the
three analysed periods, both daytime and night-time (Fig. 12). Night-
time was set when solar radiation was equal to 0.0 Wm-2.
14
If looking at the BW surface, its LWIR radiative energy balance was
always negative, i.e. it lost LWIR energy. The energy losses increased
during night-time.
The CW surface showed a different behaviour. During daytime, the
energy balance was positive in summer, in autumn and in winter, i.e. it
gained energy. During night-time, the CW lost energy, but less than the
BW. To summarize, the daily mean values of the energy balance for the
BW and CW in the three seasons were calculated. In summer, the BW lost
daily 1.5 MJm 2, while the CW losses were close to 0.0 MJm 2. In
autumn, the BW lost 1.6 MJm 2, while the CW gained 0.3 MJm 2. In
winter, the BW lost daily 2.8 MJm 2, while the CW lost 0.6 MJm 2, thus
the CW had a reduction of the losses of 79% compared to the BW. These
findings concern the LWIR radiative energy balance on the wall surface
and do not include other heat transfer mechanisms, as solar radiation, or
energy balance at the building scale. However, this is remarkable in the
evaluation of the energy performance of GFs realized with evergreen
species, during the less warm periods of the year. It emerges that the GL
acts as a thermal barrier, reducing thermal losses and night-time cooling
of the wall by LWIR radiation, thus, providing benefits in the cold
season.
The different energy behaviour of the BW and the CW was also
recorded by the surface temperatures (Fig. 2). The average of the
measured temperatures calculated over summer, autumn and winter
showed differences. During daytime, the BW was 2.6 � C, 4.0 � C and
3.0 � C warmer than the CW, in summer, in autumn and in winter,