Hello everyone!
I am working on a project, a high rise office building. The architect
added louvers as part of the design which I admire for sophistication.
Attached is a picture that shows the louvers outside for shading. But, when
I did the initial run, the effect of the louvers is only around 1% energy
improvement from the baseline.
Please let me know if there is a better way to do it in eQuest. What I did
was to measure the louver thickness and proportioned it to the glass area
that it covers. I put the fraction as "Transmittance:" in Building and
Fixed Shades properties. Doe 2 help says: TRANSMITTANCE
Fraction of incident solar radiation that is transmitted by the shading
surface. The default value is 0.0, which means the surface is opaque. A
value greater than 0.0 represents a device that passes some solar
radiation, such as a tree, lattice, or fabric. Using SHADE-SCHEDULE allows
seasonal variation in transmittance. Daylighting calculation assumes
TRANSMITTANCE = 0.
The design team quite find it hard to believe that the louvers have very
minimal effect. I told them to consider the window to wall ratio (almost
60%) and that fact that they will be using a clear glass, even with these
louvers partial UV rays still pass through the gaps that spreads allover
the glass surface that adds to the heat load for air conditioning. Ive
noticed to some of my other projects in tropical countries, building shades
don't have much effect to energy efficiency. Did anyone encounter the same
result with building shades?
Thanks,
Bob