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ENB-3906; No. of Pages 10
Energy and Buildings xxx (2012) xxxxxx
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Energy and Buildings
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ enbui l d
Automated control strategies of inside slat-type blind considering visual comfort
and building energy performance
Myung Hwan Oh
1
, Kwang Ho Lee
1
, Jong Ho Yoon
Department of Architectural Engineering, Hanbat National University, Daejeon, South Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 20 August 2012
Accepted 20 September 2012
Keywords:
Window
Slat-type blind
Building energy
EnergyPlus
Glare
a b s t r a c t
Windows are the only part in buildings that can directly penetrate the solar radiation into the space and
thus the shading devices are needed to control the solar penetration. Among different blind types in ofce
buildings, roll blinds are not operated efciently and they are usually closed without any operations by
occupants. Therefore, optimized control strategies of slat-type blinds are suggested in this study through
two stages. In the rst stage, double-sided blind was suggested by applying different reectance between
front and back sides of the slat and by fully rotating the slat when the system mode was switched between
heating and cooling mode. When the double-sided was used along with the lighting dimming control,
24.6% of the energy saving could be achieved compared to the baseline case and the glare could be avoided
at the same time. In the second stage, the control strategies of slat angle and up/down control logic were
developed to fully remove the glare and improve the energy efciency. As a result, 29.2% of energy saving
could be achieved and at the same time the chance of glare was only 0.1%.
2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Great amounts of effort have been made to reduce the build-
ing energy consumptions these days. Solar radiation control is one
of the essential factors to improve the building energy efciency,
especially under the Korean climatic condition having four distinct
seasons with a hot and humid summer and a cold winter. Windows
are the only part in buildings that can directly penetrate the solar
radiation into the space and thus the shading devices are needed
to control the solar penetration [1].
Roll blind is one of the most commonly used blind types for the
solar radiation control in Korea. However, it has functional limi-
tations and thus more advanced blind type is needed. From the
energy saving point of view, roll blinds should be fully closed to
block the solar radiation in summer and should be fully opened to
introduce the solar radiation into the space in winter. However, at
the same time, the roll blind needs to be closed to block the strong
solar beam causing the glare in winter when the solar altitude is
high. In this case where the roll blind is closed to avoid the glare,
the day-lighting factor would be reduced and the heating energy
would increase.
Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 42 821 1126; fax: +82 42 821 1590.
E-mail addresses: bigomh@nate.com(M.H. Oh), kwhlee@hanbat.ac.kr (K.H. Lee),
jhyoon@hanbat.ac.kr (J.H. Yoon).
1
These authors contributed equally to this work.
One alternative to overcome those limitations of roll blinds is
to switch to slat-type blinds that have diverse and more advanced
control strategies. Slat-type blinds have up/down control to avoid
the glare and at the same time they have great exibilities to adjust
the slat angle under each circumstance. In addition, the direct solar
radiation can be fully isolated and the high quality diffuse solar
radiation can be introduced into the space through the reection
of solar radiation fromeach slat [2].
As mentioned earlier, analternative to overcome the limitations
of roll blinds is to use slat-type blind. However, the manual control
of blinds by occupants is not an efcient way to reduce the building
energy and thus it should also be resolved. Occupants do not usu-
ally pay attention to the blinds and they are usually closed without
any operations by occupants. According to a survey by Paik et al.
[3], the manual control of blinds was realistically unfeasible due to
the high work load of occupants in ofce buildings despite the fact
that blinds should be controlled depending on the outdoor condi-
tion. Keeping the blind closed like this can block the solar radiation
which should be introduced to reduce the heating load in winter
and can increase the articial lighting energy due to the blockage
of the day-lighting. Therefore, the automated control of blinds is
necessary to overcome the limitations of manual blind control.
A variety of research studies have been actively performed to
improve the slat-type blind performance [19]. In addition to the
studies on the slat blind itself such as those dealing with roller
blind and solar optical property [4] and those dealing with slat and
curved blinds [57], the blind integrated with the windowsystems
have been studied as well [8]. Furthermore, the automated control
0378-7788/$ see front matter 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2012.09.019
Please cite this article in press as: M.H. Oh, et al., Automated control strategies of inside slat-type blind considering visual comfort and
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2 M.H. Oh et al. / Energy and Buildings xxx (2012) xxxxxx
Fig. 1. Plan viewof the simulated building [28].
of blinds has also been actively studies thus far to overcome the
manual blind control. Reinhart suggested the articial lighting con-
trol integrated with the blind control [9]. Occupancy prole and
workstation illuminance level have been plugged in as the input
condition in the control algorithmand improved energy efciency
could be achieved compared to the manual blind control. However,
the study mainly focused on the lighting energy reduction and thus
the total building energy and the occupant visual comfort have not
been taken into account. Lee et al. suggested the lighting control
integrated with blind control to consider both cooling energy and
occupant comfort in full-scale ofce space [10]. Under different slat
angle conditions such as 90
, 45
, 15
and 0
optimumblind setting
was developed by considering workstation illuminance level, cool-
ing energy prole and extent to see the outside view. However,
the glare and heating energy were not taken into account in this
study.
In this study, the optimized automatic control strategies of slat-
type blinds were developed to efciently adjust the solar radiation
throughthewindow, whichcanimprovebothenergyefciencyand
visual comfort by taking into account cooling, heating and lighting
energies as well as the glare phenomena.
2. Methods
In order to overcome the functional and control limitations of
roll blinds commonly used in ofce buildings, optimized control
strategies of slat-type blinds are suggested in this study.
Through two stages, the optimized control strategy was devel-
oped based on the total annual building energy consumption and
the Day-light Glare Index (DGI) adjacent to windows to be main-
tainedbelow22. Intherst stage, double-sidedblindwas suggested
by applying different reectance between front and back sides of
the slat and by fully rotating the slat when the system mode was
switched between heating and cooling mode. In the second stage,
the control strategies of hourly slat angle and hourly up/down
control logic were developed depending on the solar radiation con-
dition [28].
The performance of the developed automatic control strategies
of slat-type blinds integratedwiththe articial lighting control was
quantitatively evaluated by taking into account cooling, heating
and lighting energy consumptions and DGI.
2.1. Simulation software
A robust building energy simulation program, EnergyPlus
version 6.0, was used for the simulations. EnergyPlus is a
whole-building energy simulation program developed by DOE
[14]. EnergyPlus was selected because it is a heat balance
based simulation program and the heat balance method is the
current industry standard method for calculating space loads
[12,15,16,18,20,21,22,25]. Furthermore, it has the capability to per-
form the detailed energy balance analysis of solar radiation, heat
transfer and air movement between windowand blind [17].
Blind properties for direct radiation are sensitive to the prole
angle, which is the angle of incidence in a plane that is perpen-
dicular to the window plane and to the direction of the slats. The
blind optical model in EnergyPlus is based on Simmlers model
[11,26]. In addition, the effect of inter-reection of the interior
illuminance/luminance between interior reecting surfaces is cal-
culated using a radiosity method derived from Superlite [11,24].
This method subdivides each reecting surface in the zone into
nodal patches and uses view factors between all nodal patch pairs
in an iterative calculation of the total contribution of reected light
within the zone [11]. For more information on the assumptions,
detailed algorithmand validation of EnergyPlus models related to
windows, blinds and day-lighting calculations, refer to [11].
2.2. Description of the simulated building
A three-story ofce building located in Daejeon City, South
Korea having a rectangular shape with the window-to-wall ratio
(WWR) of 65% was selected for this study. TMY weather data of
Daejeon City developed by the Korean Solar Energy Society was
used for the simulation. South Zone 2 in the middle oor illus-
trated in Fig. 1 was selected as the simulation model to develop
the automatic control strategy of slat-type blind [28].
Table 1 summarizes constructions and the thermal properties
of windows and walls, which comply with the Korean Standard
for Energy Saving Design in Buildings [23]. Double pane win-
dows (6mm clear glass +12mm air +6mm clear glass) with the
SHGC, visible transmittance and U-value of 0.765, 0.812 and
2.72W/m
2
K, respectively were used. Window frames having the
width, inside and outside projection and U-value of 0.04m, 0.01m
and3.97W/m
2
K, respectively, compose the aluminumcurtainwall
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M.H. Oh et al. / Energy and Buildings xxx (2012) xxxxxx 3
Table 1
Constructions and thermal properties of windows and walls.
Internal load type Thermal properties
Exterior wall 200mmconcrete U-value
0.438W/m
2
K 70 mminsulation (0.034W/m K)
19mmgypsumboard
Raised oor 200mmconcrete U-value
0.441W/m
2
K 70 mminsulation (0.034W/m K)
200mmconcrete
Concrete slab 70mminsulation (0.034W/m K) U-value
0.46W/m
2
K 160mmconcrete
Roof 100mmconcrete U-value
0.21W/m
2
K 150mminsulation (0.034W/m K)
16mmacoustic tile
Window SHGC 0.765 SHGC 0.666
Visible trans. 0.678
U-value 2.977W/m
2
K
Visible transmittance 0.812
U-value 2.724W/m
2
K
Frame Aluminum
U-value 3.97W/m
2
K
system. Therefore, the combined properties of double-pane win-
dow with the frame have the SHGC, visible transmittance and
U-value of 0.666, 0.678 and 2.977W/m
2
K, respectively.
The physical properties of slat-type blind for the simulation
analysis is summarized in Table 2. The inside blind with the ther-
mal conductivity of 0.9W/m K, the infrared emissivity of 0.9 and
the xed slat angle of 45
was chosen. The slat width, the slat to

slat distance and the slat to glass distance of 0.048m, 0.048mand
0.05mwere chosen, respectively [28].
2.3. Indoor set-points, ventilation rate, and HVAC system
From 6:00 till 19:00 during the weekdays the system controls
the internal air temperature to heating and cooling temperature
set-points of 22
C and 26
C, respectively. During the night-time

the system was switched off without set-back control. The zone
air temperature was controlled and the thermal and lighting load
proles were calculated using the EnergyPlus function Zone-
HVAC:IdealLoadsAirSystem [14] without modelling the heating
and cooling systems. This object provides the required supply air
capacity to each zone at user specied temperature and humidity
ratio to calculate the heating and cooling loads.
Inltration was assumed equal to 0.5 ACH and the ventilation
was set to be 1.0 ACH. The schedules of inltration and ventilation
are illustrated in Fig. 2.
2.4. Internal heat gains
The peak internal load levels of the baseline case are summa-
rized in Table 3 and the hourly variations of the internal loads for
the simulated ofce building followthe schedules shown in Fig. 3.
HVAC systems operate from6:00 through 19:00 during the week-
days and from6:00 through 17:00 on Saturdays.
Table 2
Slat blind properties [28].
Field Unit Value
Blind position Inside blind
Slat width m 0.048
Slat to slat distance m 0.048
Slat thickness m 0.002
Blind to glass distance m 0.050
Slat solar and visible reectance 0.500
Slat infrared hemispherical emissivity 0.900
Slat conductivity W/m K 0.900
Slat angle

45
Table 3
Internal load level.
Internal load type Maximumvalue
Overhead lighting (W/m
2
) 10.8
Peak occupancy (m
2
/person) 17.0
Equipment (W/m
2
) 8.6
3. Results and discussions
3.1. Baseline case
The heating, cooling andlighting loads of the baseline case with-
out blind installation are summarized and illustrated in Table 4 and
Fig. 4, respectively. As summarized in Table 4, the annual cooling
load accounts for 60.1%, followed by the lighting load of 25.7% and
the heating load of 14.2%, indicating that the simulated building
showed the cooling-dominant pattern.
The slat-type blind should be controlled differently between
heating the and cooling period, and for this purpose the specic
heating and cooling periods are determined based on the relative
portion of heating and cooling load. In this study, the cooling con-
trol mode was operated from April through November when the
cooling load was dominant, while the heating control mode was
operated from December through March when the heating load
was dominant as shown in Fig. 4 [28].
3.2. Zone heat gain variation with regard to the slat reectance
Zone heat gain through the window can be broken down into
conductive, convective, infrared and transmitted solar heat gains
in Fig. 5. In case of the window without blind, solar transmittance
turned out to account for the large portion of the zone heat gain,
while the solar transmittance was signicantly reduced into the
similar values of infrared and convective heat gains in case where
the blind with the slat reectance of 0.5 was installed as shown in
Fig. 5. Since the combined effects of solar transmittance, infrared
and convective heat gains were interconnected to each other when
Table 4
Annual heating, cooling and lighting load of the baseline case [28].
Field Load (kWh) Portion
Heating 1068.3 14.2%
Cooling 4528.9 60.1%
Lighting 1938.9 25.7%
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Fig. 2. Inltration and ventilation schedules.
the blind was installed, the detailed heat gain patterns as a function
of the slat reectance were analyzed in both typical summer day
(Aug. 30th) and winter day (Jan. 31st). The variations of the zone
heat gain break-down as a function of the slat reectance with the
slat angle xed at 45
are illustrated Figs. 6 and 7 for the typical

summer and winter days, respectively.
As shown in the gure, the total heat gains increased at the
lower slat reectance in both summer (Aug. 30th) and winter (Jan.
31st) days. The main reason for the total heat gain increase was
the increase in infrared and convective heat gains despite the solar
transmittance reduction at the lower slat reectance. The reason
for the increase in infrared and convective heat gains is consid-
ered to be due to the fact that the solar radiation was absorbed
into the blind, increasing the slat surface temperature and the sur-
rounding air temperature at the reducedslat reectance. Therefore,
it can be considered that the slat with high reectance should
Fig. 3. Lighting, equipment and occupancy schedules.
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Fig. 4. Monthly heating, cooling and lighting load of the baseline case [28].
Fig. 5. Zone heat gain variation with and without blind [28].
be used in the cooling period to reduce infrared and convective
heat gains, while the slat with low reectance should be used in
the heating period to increase the infrared and convective heat
gains [28].
Fig. 6. Heat gain breakdown as a function of slat reectance (August 30th) [28].
Fig. 7. Heat gain breakdown as a function of slat reectance (January 31st) [28].
3.3. 1st stage: control of the double-sided blind
FromSection 3.1, it was found that the different slat reectance
shouldbe appliedinterms of the heat gainbetweenthe heating and
coolingperiod. Therefore, double-sidedblindis suggestedas the 1st
stage control strategy in this study, applying different reectance
betweenfront andback sides of the slat andfully rotating the slat as
showninFig. 8whenthe systemmode is switchedbetweenheating
and cooling mode. The double-sided blind has a high reectance on
the front side so that it can reect direct solar radiation and prevent
it from warming the room, while it has a low slat reectance on
the back side so that it can prevent diffuse solar radiation from
Fig. 8. Schematic of the double-sided blind [28].
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Fig. 9. Schematic of the simulated cases [28].
Fig. 10. Heating, cooling and lighting loads without lighting dimming control [28].
penetrating the room during the summer, and vice versa during
the winter.
The 1st stage double-sided blind control can save the energy
consumption and improve the visual comfort of occupants by
reducing the visible light reection and the resultant the glare. To
quantitatively evaluate the energy saving potential and the visual
comfort performance of the double-sided blind, the energy and
visual comfort performance of the 1st stage double-sided blind
control were compared to those of three alternate cases with the
conventional single-sided blind having the slat reectance of 0.9,
0.5 and 0.1, respectively as shown in Fig. 9 [28].
3.3.1. Building load evaluation without lighting dimming control
Fig. 10 and Table 5 show the load performance results of the
different simulated cases compared to the baseline case without
blind installation. It turned out that the cases with the xed slat
reectance of 0.1 and 0.5 increased the total load of the build-
ing compared to the baseline case. This is considered to be due
to the elevated infrared and convective heat gain caused by the
slat surface temperature increase at low slat reectance condi-
tion, increasing the cooling load accounting for the large portion
of the total building load, despite the reduced heating load. On the
other hand, the case with the xed slat reectance of 0.9 and the
Table 5
Heating, cooling and lighting loads without lighting dimming control.
Case Lighting Cooling Heating Total Relative
percentage
(kWh) (kWh) (kWh) (kWh)
Fixed slat reectance of 0.1 1939 5825 953 8717 116%
Double-sided blind 1939 3970 1115 7024 93%
No blind 1939 4529 1068 7536 100%
double-sided blind showed the reduced total building load by 5.9%
and 6.4%, respectively, compared to the baseline case. The conven-
tional single-sided blind with the slat reectance of 0.9 reduced the
cooling load by 22.6%, but the heating load was increased by 53%.
The reason for the total load reduction despite the high increase
rate of the heating load was that the simulated building was cool-
ing load dominant and that the increased amount of the heating
load was lower than the reduced amount of the cooling load. In
case of the double-sided blind, the cooling load was reduced by
12.3%, while the heating load was increased by 4.4%, indicating that
the increase rate of the heating load was lower compared to the
case of the xed slat reectance of 0.9 despite the lower decrease
rate of the cooling load. Therefore, the double-sided blind could
minimize the total building load among simulated cases (decrease
rate of 6.4% compared to the baseline case) due to the cooling load
reduction and the minimization of the increase rate of the heating
load [28].
3.3.2. Building load evaluation with lighting dimming control
This study implemented the continuous lighting dimming con-
trol logic which reduced the lighting load linearly with the
increased day-lighting penetration. Two sensors for the dimming
control were installed at the distance of 2mand 6maway fromthe
window, respectivelyas illustratedinFig. 11, at theheight of 0.85m.
Each of those two sensors equally handled half of the lighting load
of the room space. The sensors linearly reduced the lighting load
between the illuminance of 0lux through 500lux and if the illu-
minance became greater than 500lux, 20% of the articial lighting
was operated.
The simulated results indicated that the total building loads
were further reduced by implementing the lighting dimming con-
trol as shown in Fig. 12 and Table 6. Especially, the double-sided
blind showed the highest total load decrease rate of 24.6% due to
the deep introduction of the diffuse solar visible light into the space
integrated with the dimming control, while blocking the direct
solar beamat thesametime. Therefore, thecombinationof thedim-
ming control and the slat blind control could signicantly reduce
the building load [28].
Fig. 11. Location of the lighting dimming control sensor points [28].
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Fig. 12. Heating, cooling and lighting loads with lighting dimming control [28].
Table 6
Heating, cooling and lighting loads with lighting dimming control.
percentage
Double-sided blind 1162 3342 1178 5683 75%
No blind 1939 4529 1068 7536 100%
3.3.3. Evaluation of the visual comfort by Daylight Glare Index
Among the conventional single-sided blinds, the total building
load was reduced at the higher slat reectance as described in the
previous sub-sections. However, the solar transmittance signi-
cantly increasedat the higher slat reectance despite the decreased
infrared and convective heat gain as discussed in Section 3.1, which
can cause the reduced visual comfort due to the glare even if the
heating, cooling and lighting load was saved by the integrated con-
trol of the dimming and blind. In this circumstance, the concept of
DGI (Daylight Glare Index) developed by Hopkinson [13], was used
in this study to evaluate the visual comfort of each simulated case.
The DGI sensor was located at the distance of 2m from the win-
dowas illustrated in Fig. 13 at the average human height of 165cm
based on the measured dimension of the human body [27].
Table 7summarizes the recommendedmaximumGlare Index in
each building type, indicating that the ofce building of this study
shouldnot exceedtheDGI of 22[13]. Fig. 14presents thepercentage
of the annual occupied hours exceeding recommended DGI of 22
in each simulated case.
In case without the blind installation, 35.5% of the occupied
hours exceeded the recommended DGI of 22, followed by the
case with the xed slat reectance of 0.9 which showed the glare
Fig. 13. Sensor location for Daylight Glare Index evaluation [28].
Table 7
Recommended maximumGlare Index in each building type [13].
Building type Glare Index
Art galleries 16
Hospital wards 18
Museums and school classrooms 20
Laboratories and ofces 22
Fig. 14. Percentage of the annual occupied hours exceeding recommended DGI of
22 [28].
occurrence percentage of 19.7%. In contrast, the double-sided blind
case signicantly reduced the glare occurrence percentage into
3.2%, though it did not completely remove the glare occurrence
like the case with the xed slat reectance of 0.1.
Here, the 1st stage control strategy of the slat-type blind is
dened as the full rotation of the double-sided blind between
the heating and cooling mode integrated with the lighting dim-
ming control in this study as summarized in Table 8. Based on the
comprehensive assessment of the energy saving and DGI reduction
performance of the 1st stage blind control, it can be considered to
be greatly satisfactory compared to other alternatives [28].
3.4. 2nd stage: automated slat angle control considering the glare
removal
3.4.1. Development of the slat angle control strategy considering
the glare removal
The 1st stage blind control strategy signicantly reduced the
glare, but it still showed the glare occurrence of 3.2, indicating that
it could not complete remove the glare. Therefore, the 2nd control
strategy of the slat-type blind is developed as well in this study for
complete removal of the glare and the energy saving.
Inthedevelopment process of the2ndcontrol strategyof theslat
blind, annual cooling, heating, lighting energy and DGI perform-
ances are evaluated for each slat angle in the rst hand, and then
thosecomprehensiveperformances arecategorizedunder different
window solar radiation regions with the increment of 100W/m
2
.
After deriving the optimum slat angle showing the lowest total
energy of cooling, heating and lighting in each solar radiation
region, theslat angleshowingtheDGI of greater than22is excluded.
Table 8
1st stage control strategy of the slat-type blind [28].
Field Description
Lighting control Continuous dimming control
Slat reectance Front side 0.9, back side 0.1
Slat control Fully rotate the slat between heating and cooling mode
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Fig. 15. Slat angle control algorithmin heating and cooling modes [28].
The 2nd control strategy of the blind slat angle is nally developed
by drawing the trend line after connecting optimum slat angle in
each solar radiation region as shown in Fig. 15.
The developed optimumslat angles minimizing the total energy
consumption and removing the glare in each solar radiation region
followthe regression Eqs. (1) and (2) in cooling and heating modes,
respectively.
f
(X,cooling)
= 5E 07x
3
0.00038
3
+0.443x 16.771 (1)
f
(X,heating)
= 4E 07x
3
0.00036
3
+0.352x 29.037 (2)
In addition, it is necessary to adjust the slat-type blind into
upward position under low solar radiation condition for the light-
ing energy reduction by maximizing the daylight introduction into
the space. However, the DGI should be quantitatively evaluated
even under the low solar radiation condition due to the possible
glare occurrence. Therefore, the additional analysis was performed
in this study to decide the solar radiation regions which do not
cause the glare in the upward blind position.
As a result of the analysis, the solar radiation region less than
50W/m
2
did not show the DGE exceeding 22 as shown in Fig. 16.
It could be derived fromthe analysis that there would be no glare
even in the upward position of the slat blind under the solar radia-
tionconditions less than50W/m
2
. Therefore, the suggestedcontrol
strategy of the slat-type blind in this study is to adjust the slat angle
in the downward position under the solar radiation greater than
50W/m
2
, while placing the slat angle in the upward position under
the solar radiation less than 50W/m
2
.
Fig. 16. DGI analysis in each vertical solar radiation without blind operation [28].
Table 9
Summary of the simulated cases.
Case Blind type Dimming
control
Blind control
(1) No blind No No control
(2) Double-sided blind Yes 2nd control strategy
(3) Double-sided blind Yes 1st control strategy
(4) Single-sided with
slat reectance of
0.9
Yes No control
slat reectance of
0.5
Yes No control
slat reectance of
0.1
Yes No control
Figs. 17 and 18 show the verication of whether or not the
slat angle is properly controlled based on the developed control
algorithm under each solar radiation in the typical summer and
winter days. As illustrated in the gures, the slat angle was prop-
erly adjusted with regard to the solar radiation variations based on
the developed 2nd stage control strategy [28].
3.4.2. Energy performance evaluation of the 2nd stage slat-type
blind control strategy
After implementing the developed 2nd control strategy of the
slat blind into the building, the energy performance was quanti-
tatively evaluated under different conditions of lighting dimming
control, blind type, and blind control strategies, given the complete
removal of the glare. The summary of the different simulated cases
is provided in Table 9.
Heating, cooling and lighting loads of the 6 simulated cases are
summarized and illustrated in Table 10 and Fig. 19, respectively.
Thecasewiththe2ndstagecontrol strategyof theslat blindshowed
the total load reduction of 29.2% compared to the baseline case
without blind installation and dimming control, which was even
4.6% lower than the 1st control strategy described in Section 3.3
[28].
3.4.3. Visual comfort evaluation of the 2nd stage slat-type blind
control strategy
The main limitation of the 1st control strategy of slat-type blind
characterizedbythefull rotationof thedouble-sidedblindbetween
the heating and cooling mode was that the glare occurrence was
still 3.2%, indicating that it could not completely remove visual
discomfort caused by the glare. In this sub-section, the visual com-
fort performance of the suggested 2nd control strategy aimed at
the complete removal of the glare was evaluated for the develop-
ment of the optimum slat angle control logic. The same method
was used as the 1st control strategy as described in the Section
3.3.3 and the results are presented in Fig. 20. As shown in Fig. 20,
the glare occurrence of the suggested 2nd stage control strategy
was only 0.1%, indicating that it could completely remove the
glare.
Table 10
Heating, cooling and lighting loads of the simulated cases.
percentage
(1) 1939 4529 1068 7536 100%
(2) 1076 2986 1271 5332 71%
(3) 1162 3342 1178 5683 75%
(4) 1029 3030 1876 5935 79%
(5) 1153 4243 1282 6678 89%
(6) 1361 5428 998 7,787 103%
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Fig. 17. Slat angle variation in the typical summer days (August 29th30th) [28].
Fig. 18. Slat angle variation in the typical winter days (January 30th31st) [28].
The 2nd stage control strategy of the slat-type blind is dened
as slat angle and up/down control of the double-sided blind
depending on the solar radiation condition integrated with the
linear lighting dimming control in this study as summarized
Fig. 19. Load proles of the simulated cases [28].
in Table 11. As shown in the simulated results thus far, the
developed control logic of the slat-type blind in this study
showed greatly improved performance in terms of the total load
and visual comfort, indicating that it can signicantly enhance
Fig. 20. Percentage of the annual occupied hours exceeding recommended DGI of
22 [28].
ARTICLE IN PRESS
G Model
Table 11
2nd stage control strategy of the slat-type blind.
Field Description
Slat angle control Optimumslat angle control completely
removing the glare and minimizing the
total building load
Up/down control Greater than 50W/m
2
: downward
position
Less than 50W/m
2
: upward position
(The maximumsolar radiation
penetration causing no glare is
50W/m
2
)
the energy efciency of buildings and the visual comfort of
occupants [28].
4. Conclusions
Althoughhighperformancewindowsystems withtheenhanced
insulation are widely used recently, the traditional shading con-
trol passively operated by occupants using the roll blind is still
prevalent. This traditional shading control should be improved and
the development of the advanced control strategy of the shading
devices is neededfor the zero-energybuildingtarget inthis circum-
stance. Inthis study, the automatedcontrol strategy of the slat-type
blind aimed at the building energy saving and the improved visual
comfort is developed.
In the 1st stage, the control algorithm of fully rotating the
double-sided slat blind between the heating and cooling modes
integrated with the lighting dimming control is suggested. It
turned out that the double-sided blind without dimming con-
trol can reduce the total building load by 6.4% compared to the
baseline case without blind installation and dimming control and
that the double-sided blind integrated with the dimming con-
trol can reduce the total building load by 24.6% compared to the
baseline case. In addition, the glare occurrence ratio was signif-
icantly reduced into 3.2%, which was 33.3% smaller than that of
the baseline case without blind showing the glare occurrence ratio
of 35.5%.
In the 2nd stage, the optimum slat angle control strategy was
suggested which can achieve both the energy saving and the com-
plete removal of the glare. It turned out that the 2nd control
logic can reduce the total building load by 29.2% compared to the
baseline case and that the glare occurrence ratio was only 0.1%,
indicating that it can completely remove the glare when properly
designed and operated.
In conclusion, the advanced control strategy suggested in this
study showed greatly improved performance in terms of the total
load and visual comfort, indicating that it can signicantly enhance
the energy efciency of buildings and the visual comfort of occu-
pants in practice.
Limitations
The mainlimitationof this study is related to the selectionof the
cases to be simulated. The energy and visual comfort performance
of the newly suggestedblindcontrol strategies was investigatedfor
only one particular climate (Daejeon City) and one particular build-
ing type (ofce building). Additional climates and building types
should be addressed as well for the ndings from this study to be
generalized.
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by the National Research Foun-
dation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea Government
(MEST)(2011-0027338).
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Department of Architectural Engineering, Hanbat National University, Daejeon, South Korea

was chosen. The slat width, the slat to

C, respectively. During the night-time

are illustrated Figs. 6 and 7 for the typical

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