Applied Energy 312 (2022) 118733

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Systematically incorporating spectrum-selective radiative cooling into

building performance simulation: Numerical integration method and
experimental validation
Fan Bu a, Da Yan a, *, Gang Tan b, Hongsan Sun a, Jingjing An c
a
School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
b
Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA
c
Beijing Key Lab of HVAC, School of Environment and Energy Engineering, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing, China

H I G H L I G H T S

• A built-in numerical method of radiative cooling in building simulation is raised.

• Detailed experimental validation of the integration method is performed.
• Energy saving of radiative cooling in a strip mall in six climates is analyzed.
• A generalized and easily-usable simulation tool with built-in LRSIM is provided.

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Besides highly reflecting solar energy, the spectrum-selective radiative cooling materials (RCMs) dissipate heat to
Integration method outer space especially through the atmospheric window (e.g., 8–13 μm) and achieve sub-ambient temperature
Radiative cooling under direct sunlight. Not only potentially contributing to Earth’s heat rebalance, the daytime radiative cooling
Building performance simulation
technology but also presents promising applications to building facades as a passive ‘zero-energy’ cooling
method. Although there has been a large amount of radiative cooling materials developed recently due to the
wavelength scale photonic material design, the wide application of radiative cooling materials to buildings faces
challenges, including the barriers of scalable manufacturing and the lack of industry acceptable simulation tools
for designers and engineers. Deliberating the major impacting factors such as moisture variation in atmosphere,
this study designed a systematic strategy of incorporating spectrum-selective radiative cooling with whole-
building performance simulation by developing a new long-wavelength radiation spectrum integral module
(LRSIM) suitable for being built into the state-space model, like the DeST tool. Reduced-scale controllable ex­
periments have validated the accuracy of LRSIM, giving < 3% deviation for the spectrum-based long-wavelength
radiation calculation. Subsequently, experimental results from full-scale model houses were utilized to further
validate the DeST tool embedded with LRSIM for building application of spectrum-selective radiative cooling
materials. Indoor air temperature deviation < 1 ◦ C was observed between the simulated and measured data,
indicating the compelling prediction power of the integrated tool for radiative cooling modeling. Simulation
analysis to a single-story commercial building at six locations around the world has shown energy-saving po­
tential of 14–42% for an example radiative cooling material. Different from other customized plug-in integration,
the experimentally validated DeST with built-in LRSIM will provide architecture designers and application en­
gineers a general-purpose and easily-usable tool for promoting adoption of radiative cooling technology in
buildings.

electricity consumption worldwide [1,2]. Along with global warming

1. Introduction [3] and more frequent extreme weather events (i.e. heat waves) [4],
building cooling demand could keep increasing. The spectrum-selective
Building cooling currently accounts for nearly 20% of the total radiative cooling is an important ‘zero-energy’ technology that reflects

* Corresponding author at: Building Energy Research Center, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.
E-mail address: yanda@tsinghua.edu.cn (D. Yan).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2022.118733
Received 21 November 2021; Received in revised form 31 January 2022; Accepted 8 February 2022
Available online 20 February 2022
0306-2619/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
F. Bu et al. Applied Energy 312 (2022) 118733

Nomenclature u vector of heat disturbance at a certain moment

Isolar solar radiation, W/m2
m mass, kg αsolar absorption rate of solar radiation
t temperature, ◦ C τ time,s
Prad radiation emitted by object surface, W/m2 T ambient temperature, K
Patm long-wavelength radiation absorbed by object surface, W/ εfilm emissivity of RCM
m2 θ angle, sr
Psolar solar radiation absorbed by object surface, W/m2 h Planck’s constant, 6.626 × 10− 34 Js
Pconv heat exchange through convection, W/m2 c speed of light in vacuum, 3 × 108 m/s
IBB blackbody monochromatic radiation power, W/(m3 sr) κB Boltzmann’s constant, 1.38 × 10− 23 J/K
Ts surface temperature of the object, K εatm emissivity of atmosphere
λ wavelength, m hconv convective heat transfer coefficient, W/(m2 ∙K)
pw precipitable water, mm ε emissivity
cp specific heat capacity, J/(kgK) B matrix of the distribution coefficient of different heat
A matrix of transfer coefficient disturbances
C matrix of heat capacity of each grid T vector of temperature nodes

Fig. 1. (a) Schematic of typical physical heat transfer process on an RCM surface; (b) comparison between common materials and ideal spectrum-selective radiative
cooling materials.

solar radiation and using universe (3 K) as cold sink to shed heat from improve the thermal comfort.
surfaces on Earth, which presents promising applications to building The utilization of nighttime radiative cooling can date back centuries
facades as a passive ‘zero-energy’ cooling method [5] and could further [6]. Thick walls are widely used in residential buildings in the Middle
East and Africa to be a reservoir of heat when exposed to cold night skies
before the hot daytime. Nevertheless, despite the satisfactory cooling
Table 1
effect at nighttime, it is still hard to prevent the walls from absorbing
A brief summary of different RCMs, material technologies and their
performance.
thermal solar radiation during the daytime. Diurnal RCMs have not been
utilized until the past 10 years [7–10]. The basic principles of the heat
Authors Spectrum Material Performance
transfer processes of spectrum-selective RCMs are illustrated in Fig. 1
control technologies
(a). The realization of diurnal spectrum-selective radiative cooling is
Raman, Selective Photonic Nearly 5 ◦ C below the ambient
based on the atmospheric/sky window (i.e., 8–13 µm) [11,12]. The ra­
Anoma air temperature under the
[14] direct sunlight exceeding 850
diation transmittance in this band is very high. Therefore, the heat from
W/m2 ground surface could dissipate in the cold universe (3 K) through long-
Gentle Selective Nanoparticles Remaining 2 ◦ C below the wavelength thermal radiation. Utilizing the universe as the cold sink,
[18,24] ambient air temperature under surfaces could be cooled to 2–5 ◦ C lower than the ambient air temper­
the peak intense solar intensity
ature [13]. By designing and fabricating photonic structures [14],
of 1060 W/m2
Zhai, Ma Selective Polymer hybrid Showing a noontime cooling polymer materials [15] and metamaterials [16], RCMs can reflect
[16] metamaterial power of 93 W/m2 under almost all solar radiation and emit thermal radiation in the infrared
direct sunshine band, especially in the range of 8–13 µm [5]. As shown in Fig. 1 (b), for
Mandal, Fu Broadband Hierarchically Subambient temperature
an ordinary surface of an object, radiation and convection simulta­
[19] porous polymer drops of ~ 6 ◦ C and cooling
power of ~ 96 W/m2
neously occur on the surface, including solar radiation, long-wavelength

2
F. Bu et al.
Fig. 2. Overall methodology of the present research.
thermal infrared radiation absorbed from the atmosphere, long-
wavelength thermal infrared radiation emitted by the surface itself,
and convection between the ambient air and the surface [17]. In com­
parison, RCM surfaces absorb nearly no solar radiation owing to their
high reflection in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared optical
spectrum bands.
Significant breakthroughs have been achieved in the last decade
regarding diurnal radiative cooling materials. Recently, relevant mate­
rial research has demonstrated the feasibility of diurnal radiative cool­
ing using spectrum-selective materials, as illustrated in Fig. 1 (b).
Different technical approaches of RCMs can be categorized into two
different groups as shown in Table 1, for example, (1) by the spectrum
control (e.g., selective or broadband), (2) by material structures (e.g.,
photonic or polymer materials or others). Raman, Anoma [14] intro­
duced an integrated photonic solar reflector and a thermal emitter that
could cool itself to 4.9 ◦ C lower than the ambient air temperature and
achieved a cooling power of 40.1 W/m2. Gentle and Smith [18] prepared
a mixture of SiC and SiO2 nanoparticles, achieving a temperature 2 ◦ C
below the ambient air temperature during a period with the highest
insolation of 1060 W/m2. In 2017, an economic approach to manufac­
ture metamaterials was demonstrated [16]. The metamaterial produced
could reflect more than 96% of the solar radiation, whose emissivity in
the atmospheric window also reached 0.93. Mandal, Fu [19] increased
the reflection and emissivity up to 0.96 ± 0.03 and 0.97 ± 0.02,
respectively, using hierarchically porous polymer coatings, which could
realize a cooling power of 96 W/m2 under an insolation of 890 W/m2.
Base on the above improvements, RCMs have good application prospects
in reducing building energy consumption when installed on the surfaces
of building envelopes [20–22]. Mandal, Yang [23] proposed the use of
scalable roof white paints for radiative cooling in buildings. Different
from other spectrum-selective materials, the new paints have broadband
thermal emittance (ε ~ 0.95). While spectrum-selective materials can
achieve lower surface temperature, broadband materials could generate
more cooling power when the surface temperature is at near- or above-
ambient temperatures.
Different approaches have been proposed in researches for the
simulation of RCMs in building applications [25], which could be
categorized into two groups, segmented average emissivity model and
equivalent fitting model. The use of calculated piecewise average
emissivity is the simplest method for estimating the potential of cooling
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Applied Energy 312 (2022) 118733
roofs [26]. Muselli [27] temporarily utilized different emissivity in
different spectral bands to simulate diurnal radiative cooling and
explored the application potential of RCMs in buildings. Regression
functions in different bands have been temporarily adopted to simulate
coupled systems, such as diurnal radiative cooling water systems [28].
For equivalent models, Zingre, Wan [29] proposed a cool roof heat
transfer model to simplify the calculation using solar air temperature,
considering the temperature as a heat disturbance from blackbody ra­
diation. A coupling spectral-dependent radiative cooling method was
proposed by Yu [30] based on EnergyPlus and Python. However, the
combination was based on the ‘plug-in’ mode and still limited to
research scale.
Therefore, systematically incorporating spectrum-selective radiative
cooling into building performance simulation is necessary for detailed
simulations of the application of RCMs and for convenience for the use
by engineers or designers [26,28]. Nevertheless, the integration of RCM
calculation in current building performance simulation (BPS) tools face
two main difficulties. Firstly, the spectrum-selective material’s perfor­
mance cannot be addressed accurately in current BPS tools. Currently,
the main algorithms used in BPS tools, such as response factor method
(adopted in EnergyPlus [17]) and state-space method (adopted in DeST
[31]), are based on the linear heat transfer hypothesis that radiation
could be approximately calculated with minor errors in the common
temperature range. Due to the hypothesis above, the calculation of the
long-wavelength radiation cannot be executed along with the spectrum
in all the BPS tools, such as ESP-r [32,33], DOE-2 [34], EnergyPlus, and
DeST. Calculating the long-wavelength radiation on RCM surfaces
through average emissivity is no longer sufficiently accurate for simu­
lating building thermal processes [30]. Otherwise, additional software,
such as MATLAB or Python, must be used to develop a customized model
into existing BPS tools, thus increasing the complexity of simulation.
Secondly, the effective sky temperature model is too rough to handle the
effect of atmospheric window [17]. The definition of sky temperature is
based on the Stefan-Boltzmann law, the calculation of which was based
on the observed effective radiation between the surface of the earth and
the sky. While the sky temperature model is based on physical processes,
the model input is difficult to be determined [35]. Additionally,
spectrum-selective properties are not considered in current sky tem­
perature model, causing the deviation of the calculation of the atmo­
spheric radiation [36].
F. Bu et al.
In this study, a complete numerical integration algorithm of
spectrum-selective radiative cooling in BPS tools (DeST in this research)
was proposed and firstly systematically realized in this study. Long-
wavelength radiation on RCM surfaces was calculated synchronized
with the state-space model with moisture considered in the whole
simulation software. The new BPS tool with built-in LRSIM was vali­
dated based on a two-step experiment. The results showed that the
simulated data showed consistency with the experimental. Additionally,
a commercial building model with complete heating, ventilation, and air
conditioning (HVAC) systems was established to validate the effective­
ness of the integration method. Different from other customized
research methods, the inside-integration simulation tool with built-in
LRSIM proposed in this study can provide architecture designers and
application engineers a generalized tool for promoting adoption of
radiative cooling technology in buildings.
2. Methods
The overall methodology used in this study is shown in Fig. 2. First, a
long-wavelength radiation spectrum integral module (LRSIM) was set
up. Next, the integration method of spectrum-selective radiative cooling
in BPS based on LRSIM and state-space model was proposed and realized
in DeST, a BPS tool. To validate the accuracy of the integration method,
two independent experiments were conducted. An LRSIM test platform
and a group of control experiments with two chambers were built for
experimental validation. Finally, case studies were conducted at six lo­
cations where a single-story commercial building model with full HVAC
systems was set up in three climate zones to validate the effectiveness of
the proposed integration method.
2.1. Long-wavelength radiation spectrum integral module
The major components of the atmosphere (i.e., N2, O2, H2O, CO2, and
O3) can generally be regarded as transparent in 3–5 and 8–14 µm
thermal radiation bands [37,38]. Therefore, the infrared radiation
emitted by object surfaces in these bands, which are usually called at­
mospheric windows, can directly pass through the atmosphere and
radiate into the cold universe. The RCMs have both high emissivity in
these two bands and high solar radiation reflectivity in the short-wave
band. Therefore, preventing heat gain from solar radiation and simul­
taneously radiating heat transfer to the cold universe (3 K) could be
realized during the entire day. The heat transfer process on an RCM
surface consists of radiation and convection, as shown in Fig. 1. The
dynamic heat balance equation of the RCM placed horizontally is given
by Eq. (1), as follows:
crcm m
dt
= Prad − Patm − Psolar − Pconv
dτ
In Eq. (1), crcm is the specific heat capacity of the RCM, m is the RCM
mass, ddtτ is the rate of temperature change in the RCM, Prad refers to the
heat radiated by the radiant film, Patm is the heat absorbed by the RCM
from the atmosphere, and Pconv refers to the heat convection between the
RCM and ambient air.
Each term in Eq. (1) can be calculated using Eqs. (2)–(6) [39]:
∫ π/2 ∫ ∞
Prad (Ts ) = 2π IBB (Ts , λ)εfilm (λ, θ)sinθcosθdλdθ (2)
0 0
2hc2 1
IBB (Ts , λ) =
λ5 exp(hc/λκB Ts ) − 1
∫ π /2 ∫ ∞
Patm (T) = 2π IBB (T, λ)εfilm (λ, θ)εatm (λ, θ, pw)sinθcosθdλdθ
0 0
Psolar = Isolar ∙αsolar
Applied Energy 312 (2022) 118733
Pconv = hconv (T − Ts ) (6)
In Eq. (2), IBB is the blackbody monochromatic radiation power, εfilm
is the directional monochromatic emissivity of the radiation film, θ is the
angle with the horizontal plane in the hemisphere integral, and εfilm is an
inherent property of RCM, which can be obtained by laboratory mea­
surements. In Eq. (3), h refers to Planck’s constant, c is the speed of light
in vacuum, λ is the wavelength, κB refers to Boltzmann’s constant, and Ts
is the surface temperature.
In Eq. (4), the atmospheric directional monochromatic absorption
rate is related to the wavelength, emission angle, and water abundance
in the atmosphere. The equation illustrates that the moisture content has
a significant effect on the optical properties of the atmosphere, and
water vapor is one of the major absorbing gases for infrared radiation.
One of the important parameters is εatm , which is calculated using
MODTRAN developed by the Spectral Sciences and Air Force Research
Laboratory [40,41], where the precipitable water (pw) is calculated by
the empirical formula as shown in Eq. (7).
Rh
pw = 2.15 Tamb Patm − 0.82 (7)
17.625T
3800e amb +243.04
In Eq. (5), Isolar is the total solar radiation and εsolar is the average
absorption rate of solar radiation by the RCM. The average absorption
rate is effective because the solar radiation energy is mainly concen­
trated in the visible and near-infrared bands, where the RCM emissivity
(0.3–3.0 μm) is sufficiently stable. Therefore, Eq. (5) is a satisfactory
solution for calculating solar radiation absorption.
In Eq. (6), hconv refers to the convective heat transfer coefficient,
which is determined by the empirical linear formula,
hconv = 8.3 +2.5vwind [39]; as suggested in earlier studies, vwind refers to
wind speed.
The calculation method of long-wavelength radiation disobeys the
linear function, which is contradictory to the basic assumption of the
state-space model in BPS [31]. The fundamental principles of BPS were
introduced in section 2.2. To address this, long-wavelength radiation
should be calculated in advance using LRSIM. Therefore, the output of
the LRSIM is given by Eq. (8).
Plong− wavelength = Prad + Patm (8)
2.2. State-space model
The state-space method is a general and effective model for linear
systems, which originates from the theory of automatic control [42].
This method was first proposed by Jiang and was applied in DeST [43].
(1) The state-space method is spatially discrete and temporally continuous,
indicating that even a small time step is computable. Its basic equation
for the simulation of building thermal performance is as follows [31,43]:
CṪ = AT + Bu (9)
( )
In Eq. (9), T = t1 , t2 , ⋯, tm , tfurniture , tair denotes the temperature
nodes in which the first m modes are the differential nodes of the
building envelope; tfurniture and tair are the furniture and indoor air tem­
perature nodes, respectively. Matrix C represents the heat storage ca­
pacity of each node. Matrix A reflects the heat transfer among nodes in
the building thermal process. Matrix B reflects the influence of various
thermal disturbances on the temperature nodes. The vector u refers to
(3) the various disturbances that influence the thermal building environ­
ment, including solar radiation, outdoor temperature, and heat sources
inside the room, such as people, lights, and equipment. The solutions of
(4) Eq. (9) are available in Appendix A.
The state-space model used in DeST considers the room thermal
balance with neighboring rooms compared to the response factor
(5)
method used in EnergyPlus. At the same time, the state-space model has
a higher computational efficiency than the finite difference method.
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F. Bu et al.
Fig. 3. Schematic of co-simulation method, where ambient temperature and
humidity of the object surface and radiation heat flux are iteration variables.
Therefore, the state-space model was adopted for the integration
method in this study.
2.3. Integration method
The form of Eq. (9) is a system of linear equations, which requires
that all heat transfer processes are linear, as expressed in Eq. (9).
Although conduction and convection are linear processes, the radiation
is not governed by a linear formula. Therefore, in this study, the long-
wavelength radiation that occurred between the atmosphere and RCM
surfaces was calculated in LRSIM based on the output parameters from
DeST, such as ambient temperature, humidity, and sky view angle co­
efficient. The total heat flux of long-wavelength radiation is output from
the LRSIM and returned to DeST as an input thermal disturbance. Thus,
the entire building thermal process was divided into a room thermal
process and long-wavelength radiation on the outer surfaces, as shown
in Fig. 3.
Considering the roof shown in Fig. 3 as an example, LRSIM was
incorporated into the state-space model. First, the thermal balance of the
outer surface can be expressed as in Eq. (10):
⃒
∂ti ⃒
− λ ⃒⃒ = hconv (tout − ti ) + αsolar Isolar + Plong− wavelength (10)
∂x x=l
where ti refers to the outer surface temperature, tout is the ambient
temperature, and ε is the average absorption rate of shortwave radiation
on the outer surface. Plong− wavelength is the sum of the long-wavelength
radiation (Prad and Patm ) in Eq. (8), which should be calculated based
on LRSIM instead of a linear function.
With the new heat balance equations established, the A matrix
excluded the radiative heat transfer between the outer surfaces and the
sky. Moreover, Plong− wavelength was added to the u vector. A column of (0,
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Applied Energy 312 (2022) 118733
⋯, 1, ⋯, 0), in which all elements were 0 except for 1 in the ith node,
corresponding to the location of Plong− wavelength in vector u, was added to
matrix B to ensure that the calculation could be executed correctly in
mathematics.
2.4. Iteration in the integration method
Another essential problem that influences the accuracy and calcu­
lation efficiency is the iteration method. For the iterative calculation, the
common sequential coupling calculation methods include the ping-pong
method and iterative convergence method [44,45]. The ping-pong
iteration method uses the parameters of the previous moment to
calculate the current moment, resulting in a deviation in the calculation
results. Nevertheless, owing to its higher calculation efficiency, the ping-
pong method has been widely used in the simulation field. In contrast,
the iterative convergence method repeatedly calculates until the
convergence condition of the iterative parameters is satisfied. Thus, the
calculation input for the current time step is computed in advance, and
the results are more accurate. Nevertheless, considering that the itera­
tive calculation is conducted at each time step, the calculation might
take an excessive time. In this study, two methods were used to explore a
better approach to the incorporation method, as shown in Fig. 4.
Both iteration methods were employed to realize the incorporation
process, and a slight difference was found in the simulation. The ping-
pong iteration method was adopted in this study, considering the
calculation cost of the iteration convergence method.
3. Validation with experimental data
In this study, a two-step experimental validation is introduced to
provide a more comprehensive verification. First, an independent test
platform was set up to validate the LRSIM. Second, a group of controlled
experiments with two chambers was built to validate the integration
method of LRSIM and the state-space model.
3.1. Validation of the LRSIM
To validate the accuracy of the LRSIM, both the thermal radiation
absorbed from the atmosphere and the thermal radiation emitted by the
RCM surface should be experimentally measured to verify the correct­
ness of Eq. (8). The same measurement method as that used by Zhai [16]
was applied to validate the LRSIM. Therefore, radiation transfer in this
study was measured indirectly through a heating power meter while
monitoring the meteorological parameters from 0:00 to 6:00 in a 6-min
time step.
To eliminate other impacts, the test was conducted at night when
Psolar is 0. A heating copper plate was installed under the RCM and
connected to a feedback-controlled heater with a heating power meter to
control the RCM temperature to the ambient temperature. The entire
test platform was wrapped in a layer of insulation, except for the upper
surface exposed to the sky. There is no wind cover for the radiative
emitter. Thus, the heat loss caused by convection and conduction was
minimized, and the total radiation of Prad and Patm could be indirectly
measured using a heating power meter. A schematic of the testing
platform of the LRSIM and the physical heat transfer processes on the
RCM surface is shown in Fig. 5.
3.2. Validation of integration method of LRSIM and state-space model
For the control test, two chambers (with stainless steel and RCMs on
the outer surfaces) were built to measure the RCM performance, and the
measured data were used to test the accuracy of the integration method.
The outer and inner surface temperatures and indoor air temperatures
were measured during two successive sunny days. The measurement
points of the indoor air temperature were placed at a height of 1.2 m.
F. Bu et al. Applied Energy 312 (2022) 118733

Fig. 4. (a) Ping-pong iteration method vs Iteration convergence method; (b) one-chamber model adopted to compare the iteration methods; (c) indoor air tem­
perature simulated by two iteration methods.

Fig. 5. Schematic of the testing platform of LRSIM and physical heat transfer processes on RCM surface.

The overall view and structure of the two chambers, as well as several
measurement points in the rooms, are shown in Fig. 6. The experimental
room was covered with RCMs, whereas the control room was covered
with stainless steel.
The geometric details of the model rooms are listed in Table 2. To
determine the heat transfer coefficient, a fixed internal hot air blower (1
kW) was kept operating inside the chambers, and the surface tempera­
ture and heat flux inside and outside the model rooms were measured at
night. A temperature difference of 30 ◦ C was maintained between the
internal and external surfaces. The heat transfer coefficient of the
insulation fabric was calculated based on previous studies [46]. The
ventilation rate was measured using the CO2 tracer gas method [47], and

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F. Bu et al. Applied Energy 312 (2022) 118733

Fig. 6. (a) Photograph of the field experiment and structure of the building envelope; (b) geometry of the model for simulation; (c) locations of measuring points.

3.3. Results
Table 2
Geometric structure of model rooms.
During the first test, the ambient temperature was in the range of
Size (m) 18–21 ◦ C, and the relative humidity was 40%–50%. The temperature of
Length Width Height
the RCM was the same as that of the ambient temperature. The spectral
Model room 4.0 3.0 2.0
properties and meteorological parameters of the RCM used in the
experimental test are shown in Fig. 7 [48].
The meteorological parameters and spectral characteristics were
Table 3
entered into the RCM calculation program to simulate the radiation
Thermophysical properties for the model.
transfer of Patm and Prad . The measured and simulated data were then
U-value (W/(m2 K)) compared, and the results are shown in Fig. 7. The measured average,
Roof 0.881
maximum, and minimum values were 114.4, 116.9, and 111.4 W/m2,
Walls 0.697
Floor 0.636 and the corresponding simulated values were 115.9, 117.9, and 112.4
W/m2, respectively.
During the second validation, the measured meteorological param­
0.16 and 0.25 ACH-1 were set for the control room and experimental eters in minutes included ambient temperature, wind speed, atmo­
room, respectively. Based on the measured parameters, the DeST models spheric relative humidity, and total horizontal solar radiation, as shown
of the experimental chambers were established, and the fabric param­ in Fig. 8. Two clear days were selected to conduct the test, and the solar
eters are summarized in Table 3. The geometric structure of the model radiation exhibited acceptable regularity. During the measurements, the
used in the simulation is shown in Fig. 6. maximum solar radiation was 951 W/m2 and the lowest and highest
Both the experimental and control rooms were equipped with tem­ ambient temperatures were 26.7 and 38.4 ◦ C, respectively. The mini­
perature recorders on the east and west roofs and the inner and outer mum and maximum wind speeds were 0 and 5.8 m/s, respectively. The
surfaces of the walls. The indoor air temperature was measured, and the lowest and highest relative humidity levels were 40.0% and 88.1%,
floor was equipped with a temperature recorder. Meteorological pa­ respectively.
rameters were monitored and obtained using a self-built weather station The simulated and measured results of the internal and external
next to the experimental site. The monitored meteorological parameters surface temperatures of the model rooms are shown in Fig. 9 and Fig. 10,
included outdoor temperature, humidity, wind speed, and total solar respectively.
radiation on the horizontal plane. The accuracy of the instruments was During the daytime, the peak temperatures on the external surfaces
0.1 ◦ C, 0.1%, 0.1 m/s, and 1 W/m2. of the east and west roofs of the control room were considerably higher
The experiment was conducted for two complete days, from August than the ambient temperature, and the peak values were observed at
15, 2020, to August 16, 2020. Meteorological parameters were detected noon. The highest temperatures were 69.4 and 68.1 ◦ C, respectively. The
in 1-min steps and the surface temperature was detected in 1-h steps. peak temperatures on the external surfaces of the east and west walls
(58.8 and 64.5 ◦ C, respectively) were observed in the morning and

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F. Bu et al. Applied Energy 312 (2022) 118733

Fig. 7. (a) Spectral characteristics of RCM; (b)Ambient temperature, RCM temperature, and relative humidity during the experiment period; (c) comparison between
measured and simulated radiative heat transfers.

Fig. 8. Meteorological parameters during the experiment.

afternoon, respectively, because the sun shone directly on the east wall
in the morning and on the west wall in the afternoon.
For the experimental room, the temperature of the external surfaces
on the roofs was considerably lower than that of the control room; the
highest temperatures were 35.3 and 35.7 ◦ C, respectively, which were
lower than the ambient temperature. The peak temperatures on the east
and west walls were observed in the morning and afternoon for the same
reason as that given for the control room; the peak values were 34.3 and
39.9 ◦ C, respectively.
The average measured indoor air temperature in the experimental
room was 31.2 ◦ C, which was 7.1 ◦ C lower than that in the control room,
as shown in Fig. 11. The maximum indoor air temperature measured in
the experimental room was 33.7 ◦ C, which was 11.0 ◦ C lower than that
in the control room. Therefore, the cooling effect of RCM was confirmed
in the field test.

8
F. Bu et al.
Fig. 9. Simulated (red) and measured (black) results of the external and internal surface temperature of the control room. (For interpretation of the references to
colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
3.4. Analysis of the simulated and measured data
For the first validation, the simulated data exhibited the same ten­
dency as the measured data in Fig. 7, except for the fluctuation observed
between 1:00 and 2:00. One of the reasons might be that the absolute
humidity increased abruptly from 1:00 to 2:00. However, this was not
detected by the heating power meter. In general, the relative error be­
tween the measured and simulated data was less than 3%. Therefore,
RCM simulation can be considered satisfactory for engineering
applications.
For the second validation, as illustrated in Fig. 9 and Fig. 10, most of
the simulated data had the same tendency as the measured data. The
peak temperature was observed at 9:00 for the east external wall,
whereas it was observed at 16:00 for the west wall because of the
different maximum direct solar radiation times. The same difference was
observed for the internal walls. Moreover, the fluctuation was consid­
erably smaller than that of the external walls owing to the heat storage of
the building fabric. Typical temperature values are summarized in
Table 4.
All deviations of indoor air temperature were lower than 1.0 ◦ C.
Nevertheless, some deviations were also observed on the outer surfaces
between the simulated and measured data. The dominant cause of these
deviations can be attributed to the input parameters. For example,
owing to the monitoring limitations, direct solar radiation may have
been overestimated, although a horizontal value was detected. A
stronger direct solar radiation may cause a higher peak value and
maximum outer surface temperature. This might explain the higher
simulated temperature compared to the measured data in Fig. 9.
In addition, it was difficult to simulate the shadows of other build­
ings on the chambers using BPS tools. Limited to the experimental site,
an inevitable shadow could cause the deviation, although two chambers
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Applied Energy 312 (2022) 118733
were built up at a place as open as possible. This could result in a lower
cooling effect than expected, as illustrated on the east and south external
walls in Fig. 10. Moreover, a temperature decrease was found on the
west roof of the control room, which may also be attributed to shadows.
In addition, thermal inertia was also a difficult parameter to deter­
mine in the simulation. For instance, the maximum temperature of the
simulated and measured indoor temperatures appeared at 16:00 and
17:00, whereas the corresponding maximum temperature of the external
roofs appeared at 14:00. As a result of the underestimation of the
building thermal inertia, a distinct temperature delay curve was
generated in this simulation.
4. Case study
Considering that the energy-saving potential depends on the climate
zone, Zhao [49] estimated the radiative sky cooling potential maps of
China. García-Solórzano, Esparza-Lopez [50] also analyzed the cooling
effect of radiative cooling on building roofs. A more comprehensive
simulation is essential to validate the effectiveness of the proposed
integration method and to understand the performance of RCMs in
different climate zones [51]. In this study, a commercial building was
selected as the research object to build a prototype model, which was
validated by Gui [52], to demonstrate the performance of the integra­
tion method and estimate the energy-saving potential of RCMs.
4.1. Building information and optical spectrum
In this study, the prototype commercial building model adopted had
a total air conditioning area of 22791 m2, as illustrated in Fig. 12. Oc­
cupancy schedules and other HVAC systems were set up by default [52].
Six typical cities that were distributed from climate zone 1 to climate
F. Bu et al. Applied Energy 312 (2022) 118733

Fig. 10. Simulated (red) and measured (black) results of internal and external surface temperatures of the experimental room. (For interpretation of the references to
colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Fig. 11. Simulated (red) and measured (black) results of the indoor air temperature of control and experimental rooms. (For interpretation of the references to colour
in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

10
F. Bu et al. Applied Energy 312 (2022) 118733

Table 4
Typical temperature values of the control and experimental rooms.
Measured value(◦ C) Simulated value(◦ C) Deviation(◦ C)

Control room Average indoor air temperature 38.3 38.5 0.2

Maximum indoor air temperature 44.7 44.4 0.3
Experimental room Average indoor air temperature 31.5 30.4 0.8
Maximum indoor air temperature 33.7 32.8 0.9

Fig. 12. Prototype commercial building model adopted for the case study.

Table 5
Selected climate zones and heat transfer coefficient of the enclosure.
City Climate zone based on ASHRAE 169 Climate zone based on Köppen-Geiger climatic classification [55] Heat transfer coefficient （W/(m2 K)）

Wall Roof Window

Haikou 1A Cwa 0.792 0.8 3.5

Cairo 2B BWh 0.849 0.359 3.69
Tucson 2B BSh 0.849 0.359 3.69
Madrid 3A Dsa 0.708 0.359 3.41
San Francisco 3B Csb 0.708 0.359 3.41
Kunming 3C BSh 0.792 0.8 3.5

zone 3 according to ASHRAE 169 [53], were selected for the simulation. effectively during most of the year, although RCMs might not perform in
The Meteorological data was analyzed in Appendix B. The heating load January and December as in other months. For San Francisco and
for the warm climate year-round is not discussed in this study. The heat Kunming, the cooling load was not as high as that of the former cities
transfer coefficient of the building enclosure was set according to the because of the mild climate all year round. Nevertheless, the perfor­
design standard for the energy efficiency of public buildings in mance of RCMs in these cities was the most evident among the six cities.
Kunming and Haikou. This was set according to ASHRAE 90.1 [54] for Madrid is located in the center of the Iberian Peninsula, with no cooling
the other four cities. The specific building information is listed in
Table 5.
To compare the energy performance of the RCM installed on the
roofs, the emissivity of the roof was set equal to the default and the
spectrum-selective, respectively (Fig. 13). An emissivity profile in the
infrared band (Fig. 7) was used in this simulation.

4.2. Energy-saving potential

In Fig. 14, a typical week of the hourly cooling load of a commercial

building with default materials is shown to confirm the basic load
pattern. Generally, the air conditioning was turned on at 6:00 a.m. and
turned off at 11:00 p.m. There were three peaks on one weekday. The
first appeared at 10:00 a.m., showing a start-up load in the shopping
area. The second started from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. related to
lunchtime. The last peak was observed from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
related to dinner time. In addition, the cooling load on weekends was
higher than that on weekdays because of the larger number of customers
on Saturdays (8-Jul, for instance) and Sundays (1-Jul, for instance).
The daily cooling loads during the entire year in the three climate
zones are shown in Fig. 15. Due to the hot climate all year round, Haikou
had the highest cooling load, indicating that RCMs could work year- Fig. 13. Optical spectra of the RCMs and default materials used in the
round in hot regions. For Cairo and Tucson, RCMs could still perform case study.

11
F. Bu et al.
Fig. 14. Typical week of the hourly cooling load of the conventional
model (Haikou).
demand in winter. In summer, RCMs can evidently reduce the cooling
load.
The annual cooling load and energy savings for the six cities are
shown in Fig. 16. The annual total cooling load (103 GJ) was 18.7, 9.8,
8.4, 3.7, 2.2, and 3.5 × 103 GJ for buildings with default materials and
15.9, 8.5, 7.0, 2.9, 1.5, and 2.0 × 103 GJ for buildings with RCMs in
Haikou, Cairo, Tucson, Madrid, San Francisco, and Kunming, respec­
tively. The energy-saving in these cities was 2.8, 1.3, 1.4, 0.8, 0.8, and
1.5 × 103 GJ, and the energy-saving ratio was 15%, 14%, 17%, 22%,
34%, and 42%, respectively. The energy savings in Haikou were higher
than those in the other five cities because of the highest cooling load. In
addition, a higher heat transfer coefficient could help to utilize RCMs on
roofs. Nevertheless, the energy-saving ratio was 15% owing to the large
cooling demand. Kunming and San Francisco had an energy-saving ratio
of over 30%. This was because both cities were in a mild climate zone;
thus, the cooling demand was smaller than that in hot climate zones.
Solar radiation was the dominant heat disturbance in Kunming and San
Fig. 15. Annual cooling loads per day of two types of surfaces in different climate zones.
12
Applied Energy 312 (2022) 118733
Fig. 16. Annual cooling load and energy savings in different climate zones.
Francisco, where RCMs had high reflectivity. Therefore, a high energy-
saving ratio was observed in these cities. Nevertheless, these findings are
based on commercial buildings. More simulations are still needed using
other prototype buildings to comprehensively estimate the energy-
saving potential of RCMs.
5. Discussion and conclusion
5.1. Acceleration methods attempts
Although the integration method is more accurate, a higher calcu­
lation cost is required for the extra calculation when conducting the
long-wavelength radiation calculation. This could hinder the application
of this integration method in engineering and design. Several attempts
have been made to reduce the calculation time. True values were ob­
tained by calculating a complete and complex integral in advance. The
calculation considered an ambient temperature range of − 50 ◦ C to
50 ◦ C, relative humidity in the range of 10–90%, and surface tempera­
ture range of − 50 ◦ C to 90 ◦ C, which covered the common conditions in
engineering. Three methods were used to simplify the calculation of the
integral, as shown in Fig. 17. The integral of piecewise functions is an
F. Bu et al.
Fig. 17. Three approaches to simplify the calculation.
Fig. 18. Comparison between true values and simplified values using three methods.
intuitive simplification that reduces the calculation time by reducing the
number of calculations. Multiple regression was convenient for trans­
plantation to other types of RCMs. Artificial neural networks are widely
used to simplify complex building envelope structures or large building
scales that perform well in black-box model prediction [56,57].
The approximate results of the simplified methods are shown in
Fig. 18. The absolute average errors of the three methods were 4.12,
9.47, and 8.95 W/m2, respectively. The best results were obtained by the
integral of piecewise functions, where 97.8% of the sample points were
excluded to save calculation time. Therefore, the integral of the piece­
wise functions was applied in the integration method for comparison
with a complete and complex integral in terms of calculation time.
A complicated commercial building case with 45 RCM surfaces was
simulated with a basic time of 6636.53 s. After applying the integral of
the piecewise function, the total calculation time was 5092.15 s, cor­
responding to a reduction of 23.3% of the calculation time.
5.2. Conclusion
In this study, an incorporation method between the numerical inte­
gration module and the state-space model is proposed. First, a module
for calculating long-wavelength radiation along with the spectrum
(LRSIM) was set up. Next, the LRSIM was integrated into DeST, a BPS
tool based on the state-space model. A ping-pong iteration algorithm
was utilized to simulate the building thermal process when the RCMs
were installed in the building envelope. To validate the integration
method, two experimental validations were conducted to confirm the
accuracy of the LRSIM and integration method. The cooling power was
detected indirectly by combining the thermal radiation absorbed from
the sky and emitted by the surface itself. The obtained deviation of 3% in
the cooling power could prove the accuracy of the LRSIM. In the two
experimental chambers, the temperature values simulated by the inte­
gration method were consistent with the measurements of the external
and internal surface temperatures and indoor air temperature. A sig­
nificant temperature decrease on the roofs was observed between the
13
Applied Energy 312 (2022) 118733
experimental and control rooms; the maximum temperature decrease
was 35 ◦ C. Although the input parameters could differ from the actual
parameters such as wind speed, diffuse solar radiation, and shadow, a
deviation of less than 1 ◦ C in indoor air temperature was found between
the simulated and measured data. Therefore, the integration method can
be considered satisfactory for engineering applications. In addition, to
validate the effectiveness of the integration method and explore the
energy-saving potential, a case study of a single-story commercial
building was designed and simulated in three climate zones. A decrease
of cooling load of 14–42% was observed in climate zones 1–3, illus­
trating the good application prospects of RCMs. Three attempts, as a
supplement, were made to simplify the integral to accelerate the inte­
gration method, and a reduction of 23.3% of the calculation time was
obtained through the integral of piecewise functions. Nevertheless, more
effective methods are required for further optimization. In addition,
more analyses and simulations should be conducted in the future to fully
understand the energy-saving potential of RCMs in construction
applications.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Fan Bu: Conceptualization, Methodology, Visualization. Da Yan:
Conceptualization, Methodology. Gang Tan: Conceptualization, Visu­
alization. Hongsan Sun: Methodology, Visualization. Jingjing An:
Visualization.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
The authors give thanks to Dr. Jingtao Xu and Dr. Weiping Xu for
providing the experimental data.
F. Bu et al. Applied Energy 312 (2022) 118733

Appendix A:. Mathematic solution of the state-space model used in the building thermal process

The primary linear function of the state-space model in the BPS is shown in Eq. (A.1).
dt ∑n
cp m = at + bi ui (τ) (A.1)
dτ i=1

√̅̅̅̅− 1 √̅̅̅̅− 1
In the form of matrices, the function is given in Eq. (9). It is obtained by performing an orthogonal transformation to C A C in Eq. (A.2) and
performing the following mathematical substitutions, as illustrated in Eq. (A.3).
√̅̅̅̅− 1 √̅̅̅̅− 1
P− 1 C A C P = Λ (A.2)
√̅̅̅̅ √̅̅̅̅− 1 √̅̅̅̅− 1 √̅̅̅̅− 1
CṪ = C A C T + C Bu (A.3)
Therefore, Eq. (A.3) can be transformed into Eq. (A.4), which is a system of first-order linear differential equations with general solutions, as shown
in Eq. (A.5).
√̅̅̅̅ √̅̅̅̅ √̅̅̅̅− 1
P− 1 CṪ = ΛP− 1 CT + P− 1 C Bu (A.4)
∫ τ √̅̅̅̅− 1 Λ(τ− ξ) − 1 √̅̅̅̅− 1
T= C Pe P C Bu(ξ)dξ (A.5)
− ∞

Appendix B:. Meteorological data analysis

All of these cities are located at low and middle latitudes, where RCMs have better performance. Meteorological data were imported from the DeST
Climate Database [31]. The average dry-bulb temperature, damp, horizontal total radiation, and horizontal scattered radiation are shown in Fig. B.1.
There is almost no heating demand, even in the winter. Therefore, RCM could be a suitable technical approach for these regions. Haikou is the hottest
city among the cities evaluated and has the maximum humidity throughout the year. Moreover, Haikou has the highest humidity, where atmospheric
radiation could be higher. Tucson has the highest total horizontal radiation, yielding the highest heat gain from solar radiation. Kunming and San
Francisco are relatively warm among all the regions, which means that the use of RCMs could cover most of the cooling demand in these two cities.

Fig. B1. Monthly average meteorological parameters in six cities in climate zone 1 to 3: (a) dry bulb temperature; (b) damp; (c) horizontal total radiation; (d)
horizontal scattered radiation.

14
F. Bu et al. Applied Energy 312 (2022) 118733

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