Energy and Buildings 32 Ž2000.

303–308
www.elsevier.comrlocaterenbuild

Determination of optimum air-layer thickness in double-pane windows

Orhan Aydin )
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Karadeniz Technical UniÕersity, 61080 Trabzon, Turkey
Received 9 February 2000; received in revised form 28 March 2000; accepted 30 March 2000

Abstract

In this study, heat transfer through a double-pane window is numerically analyzed by a finite difference technique. The aim of the
study is to determine the thermally optimum air-layer thickness between the two panes for different climates. Four different cities of
Turkey, representing different climate conditions are considered: Ankara, Antalya, Kars and Trabzon. The height of the window, H is
chosen 80 cm. The effect of air-layer thickness varies between 3 and 40 mm on the average Nusselt number and the heat flux through the
inner pane. It was shown that energy losses through the double-pane windows can be considerably reduced by optimizing the thickness of
air layer. q 2000 Published by Elsevier Science S.A.

Keywords: Low-energy buildings; Double-pane windows; Optimum air-layer thickness; Numerical simulation

1. Introduction
Due to the increase in energy cost and the concern of
global environment, many countries are taking measures to
improve energy efficiency in the building sector. In this
respect, the number of studies concerning low-energy
buildings, which ensure low energy consumption and pro-
vide excellent residential comfort, have increased in recent
years.
Windows, providing natural light, ventilation and
weather protection, are very important components of resi-
dential and commercial buildings. However, it has been
recognized that windows, the thermally weakest link in the
building fabric, are thermal holes. They cause valuable
heat loss and thermal discomfort, due to very poor insula-
tion characteristic, i.e. high heat-conduction characteristic,
of glass. One way to reduce energy losses through win-
dows is to install double-pane windows. Since the air layer
trapped between two panes has very low heat conduction
coefficient, most of the heat or air-conditioning energy
losses through windows can be prevented.
The fact that, in Turkey, large window areas are pre-
ferred increase the importance of double-pane windows.
One of the most important aspects of double-pane win-
dows, regarding energy efficiency, is the thickness of the
)
Tel.: q90-462-3253223; fax: q90-462-3255526.
E-mail address: oaydin@ktu.edu.tr ŽO. Aydin..
air layer between the two panes. It has a significant effect
on the energy losses through the windows. For this quan-
tity, the optimum value that minimizes energy losses should
be defined. Some parameters such as indoor and outdoor
temperatures, weather conditions, climate, etc. influence
the optimum value of the layer thickness. Therefore, pre-
diction of the optimum value for different regions with
different climates in Turkey, which is the aim of this
study, will support the economy and preserve the environ-
ment leading decreased energy consumption.
In an interesting numerical study, which is closely
related to this work, Korpela et al. w1x investigated heat
transfer through a double-pane window. The description of
multicellular convection flow was made when Rayleigh
number and cavity aspect ratio were high. Using the
Arakawa explicit finite difference scheme for the convec-
tive terms and the explicit DuFort–Frankel method for the
diffusive terms, they determined the boundaries between
conduction, multicellular, and transition flow regimes in
the window cavity for R F 20.
Later, Lee and Korpela w2x presented more general
numerical results valid for cavity aspect ratio R F 40 and
for various Prandtl numbers. Natural convection heat trans-
fer in a double-paned window cavity with high aspect
ratios was investigated theoretically using the finite differ-
ence technique by Novak and Nowak w3x. They evaluated
various fluid flow regime boundaries for cavity aspect
ratios 10 F R F 90 and Grashof numbers ranges 1 = 10 8 F
Gr F 3 = 10 9. Zhang et al. w4x investigated the thermal

0378-7788r00r$ - see front matter q 2000 Published by Elsevier Science S.A.

PII: S 0 3 7 8 - 7 7 8 8 Ž 0 0 . 0 0 0 5 7 - 8
304 O. Aydin r Energy and Buildings 32 (2000) 303–308

insulation effect of a screen installed inside a double-glazed

window. The screen was a venetian blind system made out
of horizontal strips that could be rotated. They numerically
determined the effect of the permeable screen on the
temperature field, the flow field, and the overall heat
transfer rate. Medved and Novak w5x investigated heat
transfer through a double-pane window with a screen and
siphon which formed a semi-open cavity using PHOEN-
ICS, a commercially available CFD package. Muneer and
Han w6x presented an analysis for the calculation of the
convective heat transfer in the double-glazed window en-
closure. The potential for large energy savings due to the
use of heavy inert gases, such as krypton and xenon, was
also shown. Abodahab and Muneer w7x used measurements
and modeling techniques to study the longitudinal tempera-
ture variation of double-glazed windows. They provided a
physical model that could be used to calculate the tempera-
tures along the height of double-glazed windows. In an-
other study of theirs w8x, a model to calculate the variation
of the nocturnal temperature provided the external temper-
ature known was introduced. Further, a spreadsheet-based
software was developed to assess the frequency of conden- Fig. 1. Geometry of the window cavity.
sation that might occur on any double-glazed window. The
embodied energy of the four main materials used in the
construction of an inert-gas-filled, double-glazed window,
of a given size, was quantified by Weir and Muneer w9x. an enclosure. The flow configuration of interest is shown
The four main materials considered were infill gas Žargon, in Fig. 1. The window cavity is of length L, and height H,
krypton and xenon., timber, aluminum and glass. The and the Cartesian coordinates with the corresponding ve-
energy requirements of the underlying manufacturing pro- locity components Ž u, Õ . are indicated therein. The fluid is
cesses were also estimated for the processing of the fin- assumed to be incompressible, with constant properties,
ished product. A study was made by Sekhar and Toon w10x although buoyancy effects are considered by invoking the
on the benefits derived from smart window, a double Boussinesq approximation. The compressibility work and
glazing unit where one pane consisted of a high-perfor- the viscous dissipation terms are neglected in the energy
mance heat-reflective glass and the other coated with equation. Thermal radiation is neglected in comparison to
low-emissivity coating. A description of its quantitative convection. With foregoing assumptions, the governing
impact on cooling load, energy consumption and energy equations for the two-dimensional flow under considera-
savings achieved as compared with other forms of glazing tion are first written in primitive variables. By the elimina-
was made. The life cycle costing and the reduction of tion of pressure, the equations are obtained in terms of the
atmospheric pollutants were also analyzed. Gavin and dimensionless stream function, C and vorticity, z , which
Wilson w11x presented interim results in an experiment that are respectively expressed as follows
had monitored the environmental conditions in the glazing
cavities of a number of different window frames. The EC EC EV EU
Us Vsy zs y Ž 1.
measurements of the relative humidity, temperature and EY EX EX EY
the presence of liquid moisture in the cavities around the Hence, the usual vorticity–stream function formulation for
edge of double-glazing units were reported for a 2-year the problem is expressed in dimensionless form as follows:
monitoring period.
In this study, four different cities are chosen to repre- Stream function equation
sent different climates in Turkey. For each city, the opti-
mum thickness of air layer between two panes is deter- E 2C E 2C
mined using the finite difference method so as to minimize q s yz Ž 2.
EX 2 EY 2
energy losses through double-paned windows.
Vorticity-transport equation
Ez Ez Ez E 2z E 2z Eu
2. Mathematical formulation and numerical method
Flow and energy transport in double-paned windows is
Et
qU
EX
qV
EY
s Pr
ž EX 2
q
EY 2 / q RaPr
EX
an important example of natural convection heat transfer in Ž 3.
 O. Aydin r Energy and Buildings 32 (2000) 303–308 305

Energy equation C s constant. Thus, at the boundaries of the window

cavity, C is arbitrarily specified as zero. The value of the
Eu Eu Eu E 2u E 2u vorticity at the boundary is calculated by a three-point
qU qV s q Ž 4.
Et EX EY EX 2 EY 2 forward scheme for the stream function. This relation
yields

These equations have been nondimensionalized by us- E 2C

z wall s y Ž 11 .
ing the height H as length scale and defining the variables En2
as
where z wall is the value of the vorticity at wall and n is the
x y T y TC at outward drawn normal of the surface. In numerical calcula-
Xs Ys us ts
H H TH y TC H2 tions, the values of vorticity at corners are taken as aver-
ages of the values of vorticity at two neighboring nodes.
u Õ From the engineering viewpoint, the most important
Us Vs Ž 5.
arH arH concern is the heat transfer through the double-pane win-
dows. This is best represented by Nusselt number, which is
In the above equations Pr s Õra is the Prandtl number a measure of the ratio of the heat transfer by conduction to
and Ra is the Rayleigh number defined in the following the total heat transfer. The average Nusselt number, Nu y
form for heated wall is given by
g b H 3 Ž TH y TC . 1
Ra s Ž 6. Nu y s H0 Nu Ž Y . dY Ž 12 .
Õa
The appropriate boundary conditions are
where NuŽ Y . is local Nusselt number for heated wall and
us1 Us0 Vs0 at X s 0 and 0 - Y - 1 is given by
Ž 7. Eu
Nu Ž y . s y Ž 13 .
us0 Us0 Vs0 at X s 1 and 0 - Y - 1 EX Xs 0
Ž 8.
The flux through the double-pane windows can be calcu-
Eu lated using the Newton’s cooling law, which is given as
s0 Us0 Vs0 at Y s 0 and 0 - X - R
EY q s h Ž T H y TC . Ž 14 .
Ž 9.
where h is the heat convection coefficient and, it is
Eu obtained from
s0 Us0 Vs0 at Y s 1 and 0 - X - R
EY
Ž 10 . Nu yk
hs Ž 15 .
L
where R s HrL is the aspect ratio of the window cavity.
The no-slip conditions at the walls Ži.e. there is no mass The numerical solutions to the systems of coupled differ-
flux across any solid boundary. lead to the condition ential equations given above are obtained using the finite

Table 1
Comparison of the results obtained with the computer code used in this study with those of de Vahl Davis w13x for the differentially heated square cavity
problem
Ra 10 4 10 6
Present study Ref. w13x Difference Ž%. Present study Ref. w13x Difference Ž%.
Cmid 5.087 5.071 0.310 16.445 16.320 0.760
Cma x 5.087 5.071 0.310 16.954 16.750 1.200
Uma x 16.225 16.178 0.290 65.874 64.630 1.890
Vma x 19.645 19.617 0.140 215.350 219.360 1.860
Nu 2.234 2.243 0.400 8.945 8.800 1.620
Nu ma x 3.531 3.528 0.080 18.254 17.925 1.800
Nu min 0.589 0.586 0.510 0.975 0.989 1.440
306 O. Aydin r Energy and Buildings 32 (2000) 303–308
Fig. 2. Streamlines and isotherms for the benchmark problem at Ras10 4
and Ras10 6 .
difference method. The vorticity transport and energy
equations are solved using the alternating direction implicit
method of Peaceman and Rachford, and the stream func-
tion equation is solved by successive over-relaxation ŽSOR.
method. Details of the numerical simulation method can be
found in Ref. w12x.
The validity of the computer code developed is checked
against the benchmark solutions of the de Vahl Davis w13x
for buoyancy-driven flow in a square cavity with differen-
tially heated vertical walls and adiabatic horizontal walls.
A comparison between the results of the present study and
the benchmark study for Rayleigh number values of Ra s
10 4 and 10 6 is shown in Table 1, where Cmid , Cmax , Umax ,
Vmax , Nu, Nu max and Nu min refer to the stream function at
the midpoint of the cavity the maximum value of the
stream function, the maximum horizontal velocity on the
vertical midplane of the cavity, the maximum vertical
velocity on the horizontal midplane of the cavity, the
average Nusselt number at the hot wall, the maximum
value of the local Nusselt number at the hot wall and the
minimum value of the local Nusselt number at the hot
wall, respectively. As can be seen, the deviation from the
benchmark solutions are very small, which gives credence
to the computer code developed. For the Rayleigh numbers
of Ra s 10 4 and 10 6 , the flow and temperature fields in
the form of streamlines and isotherms are given in Fig. 2.
The solution domain is discretized using a nonuniform
mesh with smaller grid spacing near the walls and larger
spacings in the interior, which allows the hydrodynamic
and thermal boundary layers to be resolved without an
excessive of nodes. As a compromise between cost and
accuracy, all the computations presented here are per-
formed on a 31 = 121 grid. Results obtained with finer
grids did not show any noticeable changes in the predicted
flow field and heat transfer coefficients.
3. Results and discussion
This study is aimed at determining optimum air-layer
thickness between the two panes of double-paned windows
for some cities with different climates in Turkey. The
cities examined here are Ankara, Antalya, Kars and Trab-
zon. For these cities, the corresponding design winter
temperatures are given in Table 2.
The window height is chosen to be 80 cm, which is one
of the generally used values in the window design in
Turkey. The indoor temperature is taken 218C. As stated
earlier, as an approximation, the two panes are assumed to
be kept as isothermal. Using the corresponding values of
each city, temperature difference, DT, Prandtl number, Pr,
and Rayleigh number, Ra are obtained and given in Table
3. These parameters are used as initial data in the computer
code to obtain the flow and energy transport mechanisms
differing from city to city. The variation of the average
Nusselt number through the inner pane, Nu with the
increasing air-layer thickness, L, is given in Fig. 3. As can
be seen, for smaller values of L, Nu is around 1. The range
of Nu s 1 is the largest for Antalya, while being the
smallest for Kars. The fact that Nu equals 1 is an indica-
tion of heat transfer due to the conduction, i.e. the conduc-
tion is the only mechanism of the heat transfer. For larger
air-layer thickness beyond 15 mm, Nu increases with the
increasing L. Increasing Nu means more contribution of
convection mechanism in heat transfer. Since the heat
convection mechanism occurs with the movement of the
fluid, increased convection is a result of intensified circula-
tion of air trapped between the two panes. In order to have
a better view into the effect of the air-layer thickness, the
variation of the heat flux through the double-pane window
is shown in Fig. 4. Up to L s 10 mm, where conduction
dominates over convection, heat flux decreases consider-
ably with the increasing L. This is physically explained by
the heat conduction law of Fourier, which shows an in-
Table 2
Winter design temperatures for the cities considered in this study
City Design winter temperature
Antalya q3
Trabzon y3
Ankara y12
Kars y27
 O. Aydin r Energy and Buildings 32 (2000) 303–308
Table 3
Governing parameters for the simulation program for each city examined
City DT w8Cx Pr Ra=10 9
Antalya 19 0.711 1.115
Trabzon 25 0.716 1.548
Ankara 34 0.713 2.255
Kars 49 0.715 3.862
versely proportional relation between the heat flux and the
thickness. When the heat transport mechanism is conduc-
tion, heat transfer decreases very rapidly with the increas-
ing air-layer thickness. Since the heat conduction coeffi-
cient of air is low, air layer behaves like an insulation
material.
For larger values of L, the convection mechanism of
the heat transfer starts to show its effect on the energy
transport. For the range 10–15 mm of L, the trend of the
decrease in q with the increasing L continues, but in a
lower slope. For this range of L, the conduction and
convection mechanisms are in a comparable level. There-
fore, the decrease in the heat transfer with the increasing L
due to the conduction is balanced with the increase in the
heat transfer due to the natural convection in enclosed air
layer. Beyond L s 15 mm, the effect of the thickness of
air layer on the heat flux differ from city to city. As can be
seen, for Antalya, the increase in the heat flux continues
slightly up to 21 mm. This is due to comparable effects of
the conduction and convection mechanisms on the heat
transport phenomena. Beyond L s 21 mm, q increases
with increasing L due to the fact that the convection
dominates over the conduction. Therefore, choosing the
distance between the two panes in the range of 18–21 mm
is the optimum solution for Antalya. The corresponding
Fig. 3. Variation of the average Nusselt number at the inner pane, Nu,
with the thickness of the air layer between the two panes, L.
307
Fig. 4. Variation of the heat flux through the inner pane, q, with the
thickness of the air layer between the two panes, L.
range for Ankara and Trabzon is 15–18 mm, while it is
12–15 mm for Kars.
With the use of the optimum value of thickness of the
air layer, the percentage decrease in the heat flux can be
calculated using
Ž q Ls opt y q Lsref .
PD Ž % . s = 100 Ž 16 .
q Ls ref
where q L s opt and q L s old represent the heat fluxes at the
optimum value and the reference value of the thickness of
the air layer, respectively. If the optimum values found
here are used instead of L s 9 mm, which is the value
commonly used for window design in Turkey, the follow-
ing decreases in the heat transfer, therefore energy savings,
will be obtained: 40% for Antalya, 34% for Trabzon, 29%
for Ankara, 21% for Kars.
Finally, it should be remembered that here, our aim was
to obtain a thermally optimum air-layer thickness. In some
other cases, different considerations such as sound trans-
mission control could be an aim to be achieved. If the
control of sound transmission was considered, one would
obtain different results since there was a trade-off between
the control of the sound transmission and the control of the
heat flow.
4. Conclusions
In this study, the focus was on the determination of the
optimum air-layer thickness for the double-paned win-
dows. This was accomplished through the theoretical in-
vestigation of natural convection heat transfer in double-
paned windows using a finite difference technique. Four
different cities characterizing different climates in Turkey,
308 O. Aydin r Energy and Buildings 32 (2000) 303–308

Ankara, Antalya, Kars and Trabzon, were examined. Based Subscripts

on the simulation results, the range of the optimum thick- C cold wall
ness was found to be 18–21 mm for Antalya, 15–18 mm H hot wall
for Trabzon and Ankara, and 12–15 mm for Kars. It was i, j coordinate indices
shown that considerable savings in the energy losses opt optimum
through the double-paned windows could be obtained when ref reference
the optimum values were used. Actually, considering wall at wall
constant temperatures for each plane surface was an x in x-direction
assumption. More realistic boundary conditions such as y in y-direction
nonuniform temperatures, conduction through the panes cr critical
and convection boundary conditions for each pane will be
considered in a future study.

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