Effect of Solar Radiation On Roof Forms

Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Development Conference (TISD2006) Faculty of Engineering, Khon Kaen University, Thailand 25-27
January 2006
Effect of Solar Radiation on Roof Forms

Yingsawad Chaiyakul* Ph.D and Chumnan Boonyaputthipong* Ph.D * Faculty of Architecture, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen 40002 E-mail: cyings@kku.ac.th
Abstract
Solar radiation in Thailand is high and causes unflavored thermal conditions for people in the building. For low-rise buildings, roof surface is a dominant part receiving both direct and diffuse radiations from the sun and the sky relatively. This energy is then absorbed into the roof material and heat is transferred into the building. To minimize this effect, a suitable roof form must be selected for a building so that the roof surface receives the least radiation. This paper attempts to find an adequate roof form for a detached house in Thailand. By using empirical models for predicting global and diffuse radiations, the amount of radiation at a point on any tilted, oriented surface can be calculated. To simplify the mathematical procedure, a computer program was then written. With the same plan of a house, different roof forms were selected and the results of solar radiation on the different roofs were compared. The selections were based on commonly used forms of the roof for the detached house in Thailand. The results show that the total amount of solar radiation is dependable on the roof form and on its orientation when the slope of the roof is high. However, for common configurations of the roof found in Thailand nowadays, orientation does not have a large effect on the amount of the solar radiation, particularly for a hip roof at 35 degree slope. The paper overall set up guidance for architects and designers in selecting an adequate roof configuration for minimizing solar radiation on its surfaces. Furthermore, the program written for calculating solar radiation on the roof is simple for architects to use when making decision in selecting a roof form for buildings. Keywords: Roof, solar radiation, irradiance cooling loads caused by solar radiation can be simply cut down by reducing the total radiation received by the roof surfaces. Various forms of the roof, e.g. hip, gable, flat, intercept different amounts of solar radiation. Giving the same roof material, the main parameters that determine irradiance on the roof are the incident angle between the roof surface and the sun rays, and the total area of the roof surfaces. Thus roof forms play an important role in effecting indoor temperature when the thermal resistance of the roof is a constant. This paper examines the relationship between the amounts of solar radiation received by various roof forms on the same area of the plan. Simple mathematical models for estimating irradiance on the roof were described and a computer program was written in Matlab to run calculations for large number of roof forms with varying types, tilted angles and orientations.
2. Roof form for a detached house in Thailand

A configuration of roof selected for a detached house is relatively dependent upon the roofing material. A traditional Thai house had a gable roof with a slope of 50-60. This high slope solves a problem of water leak in rainy season as the roof was made of natural material such as grass and wood tiles. In 1970s, a new material for roofing, e.g. asbestos cement roof tiles, allowed the roof to be sloped as low as 15-20. With this roofing material, the low sloped roof had become popular in that time. Nowadays, concrete tiles are a common choice for designers and owners because it is more durable and it has a various range of colours and forms. Cement roof tiles need a slope between 30 and 40 to avoid rain leaking problems. Several roof forms of a detached house are commonly found in Thailand: gable, hip and flat slab. In terms of solar radiation different roof forms could be compared. In this study, comparisons were made with gable and hip roofs with 15, 35 and 60 slopes, and a flat slab roof was also included in the comparison. Roof configurations included in this work are shown in Table 1.
1. Introduction
Roof of a house is a building element that primarily intercepts solar radiation in Thailand. First the radiation raises the temperature of the roof and the air above the roof surface. The heat is then transferred into the building, and the transferring rate is dependent upon the conductivity of the roof material. As a result a total amount of solar radiation intercepted by the roof plays an important role to indoor cooling load of the building. Nonetheless the
Table 1 Roof configurations Roof form Orientation Gable E-W N-S Hip E-W N-S Flat Slab
Tilted angle 15 30 60
orientation and shape. This is a configuration factor between a point on a roof and the sky. It is convenient to assume that the sky is of uniform radiating source. Thus the sky irradiance on a roof surface is (3) I sky = I d CFroof sky where I d is the sky irradiance on the horizontal surface, CFroof sky is the configuration factor between the sky and a point on the roof and can be calculated as 0.5(1 + cos ) , where is the tilted angle of the roof [3]. Thus the irradiance on a point on any tilted roof from direct and diffuse radiation is (4) I total = I sn cos + I d CFroof sky Equation (4) gives irradiance (W/m2) on a roof surface. In order to calculate received irradiance on the entire surfaces of a roof, the irradiance (W/m2) has to be multiplied by the roof area.
3. Solar radiation model

A study by Chirarattnanon et.al. [1] provided empirical models for estimating solar irradiance for Bangkok. A simple technique for estimating solar radiation is using an empirical model relating irradiance to solar altitude angle. I = A sin B ( s ) (1) where I is the irradiance (W/m2), A and B are parameters used for the model, and s is the sun altitude. The resultant models of calculating irradiance by Chirarattnanon et.al. [1] are adopted in this paper for further calculations. Principally irradiance on the roof surface composes of direct irradiance from the sun and indirect irradiance from the unobstructed sky as shown in Figures 1(a) and 1(b). The orientation and the tilted angle of the roof set the incidence angle between the sun rays and the roof surface. This incidence angle tells how the surface intercepts the sun rays. Figure 1(b) shows the roof surface B oriented on the opposite side of the sun rays and then it intercepts less solar radiation. Irradiance from direct sun radiation is a product of (a) the irradiance from direct sun radiation on its normal direction and (b) the angle of incidence of a ray and a roof surface. It is written as I sun = I sn cos (2) where I sun is irradiance from direct sun radiation the tilted roof surface, I sn is the solar normal radiation, and is the angle of incidence of the sun rays onto the roof surface. This angle of incidence ( ) can be calculated by using two sets of direction cosines [2]. Irradiance from the sky on each roof surface depends upon the amount of the sky seen by the surface. When roofs are tilted at different angles, they see different amount of the sky areas as shown in Figures 2(a) -2(c). The basis of an area source equation gives the irradiance at a point from an infinitely surface of any
(a)
(b) Figure 1 The angles of incidence of the sun rays and surfaces A and B are different. (a) the roof surface A intercept most of the sun rays, and (b) the sun rays are little received by the roof surface B
(a)
To perform comparisons of various roof forms, a computer program was written in Matlab for computing an amount of radiation on various roofs. The validation of the computer program was initially performed by running simulations for flat and vertical surfaces. The results were compared and examined with the sun path diagram. Further validation could be done by comparing the modeled values and the measured values but it was not included in this paper. The written program as shown in Figure 3 allows many roof configurations and locations to be conveniently simulated. The results are discussed in the next section.
4. Results
A computer program was used to simulate the amount of solar radiation on different roof as listed in Table 1. The clear sky condition was considered in this paper. A detached house with a typical plan was selected for initial study as shown in Figure 4. This house plan was used and changed the roof types for this work. The simulations were carried out for four critical days, e.g. March 21st, June 21st, September 21st and December 21st. It is noted that these results referred to the received radiation (Watt) on the total roof area.
(b)
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(c) Figure 2 The tilted angle of the roof defines the amount of the sky area: (a) 60 tilted roof; (b) 35 tilted roof; and (c) 15 tilted roof
Bedroom
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WC Bedroom Bedroom
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Figure 4 A typical plan of a detached house used in this study 4.1 Gable roof The results in Figures 5-7 showed that orientation of the roof does not have a significant effect on the amount of solar radiation for a roof with a lower tilted angle. When the tilted angle is high at 60 as in a traditional Thai house, orientation becomes a factor determining the amount of solar radiation on the roof surfaces. It could also be noted that the amount of radiation is a product of irradiance and the area of the roof surface. Thus, when the roof angle increases, the roof surface area is increasing and the total radiation is higher. For a 35 tilted roof, the roof
Figure 3 A written program was used to compute solar radiation for various roof configurations and locations
orientation slightly affects the amount of solar radiation in the morning and afternoon. 4.2 Hip roof The simulation results for a hip roof are shown in Figures 8-9. It is noticeable that there is no significant affect on the amount of roof radiation from different orientation for a roof with 35 tilted angles. This is the same for a hip roof with 15 tilted angles but the results was not included in this paper. As the slope is 60, there is a little effect on the radiation when the orientation was changed. 4.3 Roof forms The simulation results for three roof forms: hip, gable and slab were shown in Figure 10. It is interesting that the amounts of solar radiation on the roofs are not very different. This could be explained that the area of the roof has an influence on the total amount of radiation.
6. Conclusions
Popular tilted angles of roofs are between 30 and 35 for detached houses in Thailand. The simulated results have shown that the amount of irradiance on such house is not influenced by the roof orientation. As a result, other parameters associating with heat transferring rate into the building, e.g. material, surface colour may become deciding factors on the cooling loads of the building, but they are not discussed in this work. However, the work is an ongoing project of roof and its effect on the cooling load of the building. The other parameters are being investigated Finally, the computer program for this investigation is an easy tool for architects and engineers as the information required for computation is simple. It is a possible design-tool for any locations in Thailand since the algorithm for solar irradiance was derived from data collected in the country. The simulation was carried out and compared between northern, central and southern locations in Thailand. The results confirm that there is no significant difference between locations. Therefore the findings in this work can be well applied to any locations in Thailand.
5. Discussion
The key findings from the results are that (a) tilted angle, (b) orientation, and (c) roof form have a minimum impact on the total solar radiation for roof configurations used at present, e.g. hip or gable at about 35 tilted angle. However, for the case of 60 tilted angle, there is a slight difference by the effect of orientation and roof form as shown in Figures 7 and 9. Although orientations can become a key factor to determine the amount of solar radiation on the roof, it is not always possible for designers to determine the orientation of the roof. This is because other limiting factors such as view, site, building codes, etc. Nowadays, however, a popular roof angle used in a detached house is approximately 35. At this value of angle, orientation and roof form selected do not have a considerable impact on the amount of solar radiation. For irradiance (W/m2) on different tilted surfaces, tilted angle and orientation do have an impact. However, the total amount of the radiation is considered and it is a product of an area and irradiance. Thus the roof angle does not give a large impact when considered the total radiation received by the roof surface as the area increases when the tilted angle gets steeper. Moreover, it is interesting to note that a traditional Thai house with a high slope roof receive the most radiation since the roof surfaces increases as the roof angle gets higher. Design alternatives to minimise building cooling load is reducing the temperature of the roof surface and increasing its thermal resistance. Using lightcoloured roof is a simple option as it produces much lower surface temperature whereas dark surface absorbs a large amount of solar radiation and raises the temperature of the roof surface. As thermal resistance of the roof controls the amount of heat transferred into the building interior, it is important to pay attention on designing a roof material.
References
[1] Chirarattananon, S., P. Chaiwiwatworakul, and S. Pattanasethanon. 2002. Daylight availability and models for global and diffuse horizontal illuminance and irradiance for Bangkok. Renewable Energy, 26: 69-89. [2] Tregenza, P. and S. Sharples. 1993. Daylighting Algorithms. Sheffield: School of Architecture University of Sheffield. Report No.: ETSU S 1350. [3] Siegel, R. and J. R. Howell. 1992. Thermal Radiation Heat Transfer. 3rd ed., Hemisphere Publishing Corporation, Washington.
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Figure 6 Simulation results for a gable roof with a 35 tilted angle March
Figure 5 Simulation results for a gable roof with a 15 tilted angle
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Figure 7 Simulation results for a gable roof with a 60 tilted angle

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Figure 9 Simulation results for a hip roof with a 60 tilted angle March
Figure 8 Simulation results for a hip roof with a 35 tilted angle March 150000
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Figure 10 Comparisons of the amount of solar radiation on different roof forms
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Effect of Solar Radiation On Roof Forms

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Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Development Conference (TISD2006) Faculty of Engineering, Khon Kaen University, Thailand 25-27

Effect of Solar Radiation on Roof Forms

2. Roof form for a detached house in Thailand

3. Solar radiation model

Solar Radiation (Watt)

Solar Radiation (Watt)

Solar Radiation (Watt)

Solar Radiation (Watt) 100000 150000 50000 0

Solar Radiation (Watt) 100000 150000 50000 0

Figure 5 Simulation results for a gable roof with a 15 tilted angle

Figure 7 Simulation results for a gable roof with a 60 tilted angle

Solar Radiation (Watt)

Solar Radiation (Watt)

Solar Radiation (Watt)

Solar Radiation (Watt)

Solar Radiation (Watt)

Solar Radiation (Watt) 150000

Solar Radiation (Watt)

Solar Radiation (Watt) 50000 0

Solar Radiation (Watt) 50000

Figure 10 Comparisons of the amount of solar radiation on different roof forms

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