Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering

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Study on heat storage mechanism of building wall

based on passive housing

Jizhi Zhang

To cite this article: Jizhi Zhang (2023) Study on heat storage mechanism of building wall based
on passive housing, Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering, 22:2, 402-414, DOI:
10.1080/13467581.2022.2046001

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13467581.2022.2046001

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JOURNAL OF ASIAN ARCHITECTURE AND BUILDING ENGINEERING
2023, VOL. 22, NO. 2, 402–414
https://doi.org/10.1080/13467581.2022.2046001

Study on heat storage mechanism of building wall based on passive housing

Jizhi Zhang
School of Architectures & Art design, Southeast University Chengxian College, Nanjing, Jiangsu China

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Building energy consumption has seriously affected the economic development of various Received 1 July 2021
countries. Through in-depth analysis of the basic characteristics of passive buildings in Accepted 18 February 2022
Germany, this paper establishes a building geometric model with traditional heat collecting KEYWORDS
wall rooms. By optimizing the heat transfer model and boundary conditions of the building, the Building landscape; thermal
thermal environment of the model under steady-state and transient conditions is simulated energy storage; passive
and analyzed respectively. The heat collection characteristics of the outer surface of the heat house; thermodynamic
collection wall in winter are deeply discussed. The distribution characteristics of the tempera­ analysis
ture field and wind speed field of the vent and the room as well as the effects of the wall size
parameters and the surface structure of the heat collection wall on the heat collection
efficiency are compared. Through the test and analysis of the heat collection effect of passive
buildings, it is proved that the structural technology studied in this paper has an obvious effect
on architectural design and transformation, and has important application value. It provides
a theoretical basis for the field test of transforming the existing passive solar house.

1. Introduction
China’s passive building energy-saving design concept
is in the exploratory stage. At present, its ultra-low
energy consumption design standard mainly refers to
the German “passive house” design certification stan­
dard. At present, three provinces in cold areas have
issued their own passive ultra-low energy consump­
tion building design standards. Although these three
design standards are different, they still take
Germany’s “passive house” as design certification stan­
dard. Therefore, this paper mainly analyzes the archi­
tectural design standard of “passive house” in
Germany (McMahon et al. 2018; Rathore and Kumar
Shukla 2021; Rathore and Shukla 2021). The main char­
acteristics of passive buildings represented by “passive
houses” in Germany are low building energy consump­
tion and high indoor comfort. These characteristics are
easier to highlight in new buildings and better reflect
the efficiency of “passive house” buildings (Rathore,
Shukla, and Gupta 2020; Li et al. 2017).
In recent years, passive architecture has emerged in
China. There are few examples of passive architecture,
and there is a lack of experience in the theory and
construction of passive architecture design. Due to
the shortage of resources, energy conservation cam­
paigns are carried out all over the world, and China is
no exception. Under the general requirements of
national building energy conservation, the importance
of building energy conservation has been realized in
the planning and design of new towns (Bai et al. 2018;
Wang, Zhang, and Yu 2019; Hao, Ma, and Geng 2018).
This paper investigates and analyzes the thermal envir­
onment, energy consumption, air tightness and resi­
dents’ comfort, compares the standards of the core
technologies of passive buildings, and determines the
energy consumption and comfort control indexes of
houses in severe cold, cold, hot summer and cold
winter areas. Make overall improvement measures
from the heat transfer coefficient of enclosure struc­
ture, avoidance of thermal bridge, air tightness
requirements, requirements of fresh air system and
combine with the use of renewable energy to make
overall improvement measures.
With the opening of the housing market and the
rapid development of real estate, China’s housing con­
struction has also developed. However, early real
estate developers and designers did not pay enough
attention to building energy consumption and build­
ing energy conservation. In the design, they often took
the lower limit or even directly ignored the energy
conservation index, resulting in the further increase of
building energy consumption (McMahon et al. 2018).
At present, the application of building energy-
saving technology is mainly divided into two cate­
gories: the first is to install various renewable energy
collection equipment in buildings to reduce the
demand for non renewable resources through the col­
lection and use of renewable energy, which is open
source; the second is to reduce the energy loss of
buildings in the use process through various technical
or structural measures so as to reduce the demand of
buildings for non renewable resources, which is

CONTACT Jizhi Zhang fudaoyi76r@163.com Southeast University Chengxian College, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210088, China
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group on behalf of the Architectural Institute of Japan, Architectural Institute of Korea and
Architectural Society of China.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which
permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 JOURNAL OF ASIAN ARCHITECTURE AND BUILDING ENGINEERING
throttling. In the process of daily use and maintenance
of buildings, the heat loss of domestic and foreign
maintenance structures accounts for the largest pro­
portion of overall energy consumption. Therefore, the
skill benefit brought by the second type of energy-
saving method is more significant. Among them, the
passive ultra-low energy consumption buildings repre­
sented by German “passive house” buildings have
been fully developed in Europe (Rathore and Kumar
Shukla 2021). In recent years, China has also begun to
learn from the formulation strategy of passive ultra-
low energy consumption building design standards in
Germany. How to transform its standards into appro­
priate and realizable technologies, and realize passive
buildings to reduce building energy consumption
while meeting people’s architectural design and
energy-saving needs for indoor comfort (Rathore and
Shukla 2021) is now under great consideration.
In 2006, Japan revised the law on rationalization of
energy use issued in 1979 for the fifth time to further
emphasize the “Declaration obligation of energy-
saving measures”. It emphasizes the declaration of
building energy-saving measures and their effects for
new buildings to ensure the control of building energy
consumption (Rathore, Shukla, and Gupta 2020). In
2007, EU countries also began to pay attention to
building energy consumption control because of
energy problems. In March of that year, they put for­
ward three “20%” concepts. By 2020, they will realize
building energy consumption control in three aspects:
greenhouse gas emission reduction, one-time energy
consumption and the proportion of renewable energy
(Li et al. 2017). Passive building design and its ultra-low
energy consumption standards have developed
rapidly in the EU. In 2008, Daniel Sheila published the
book solar energy – passive heating and cooling,
which describes in detail the solar energy utilization
strategy of passive buildings under different regions
and climatic factors (Bai et al. 2018). In 2010, the EU
issued the building energy efficiency directive 2010
(EPBD 2010). It clearly stipulates that after
31 December 2020, its member states must be extre­
mely strict with zero energy consumption buildings
whether they are officially put into use or new build­
ings (Wang, Zhang, and Yu 2019). By 2012, the number
of passive buildings in the world will reach more than
37,000 (Hao, Ma, and Geng 2018).
When passive buildings enter China, their research
and application areas are mainly concentrated in severe
cold and cold areas. In 2007, China’s Ministry of housing
and urban rural development conducted a series of
cooperation with the German Energy Agency, including
some passive construction projects (Chen, 2017). In
2011, China’s first passive construction project,
Qinhuangdao “on the water side” experimental residen­
tial area, was officially launched. China and Germany
jointly participated in the design and localization
403
transformation of relevant technologies, successfully
reached the ultra-low energy consumption evaluation
standard, and finally put into use in 2013. They also
received good feedback in the actual use process. In
terms of reducing building energy consumption and
improving indoor comfort, the passive building energy-
saving design concept is well realized (Yao 2017).
The research project in this paper is located in the
cold area of China’s architectural climate division. The
total area of the project is about 3800 m2, with a total
of 3 floors. The passive building design concept and
ultra-low energy consumption design standard are
demonstrated for public buildings and residential
buildings respectively. As a demonstration project,
the completed part of the project is in good operation
in strict accordance with the design standards of pas­
sive ultra-low energy consumption residential build­
ings in cold areas and the German Phi certification
standards. However, as an experimental project, there
must be some parts that can be improved. In view of
these problems existing in the project practice, com­
bined with relevant data investigation, this paper stu­
dies and analyzes the design strategy of passive
building exterior wall insulation system in cold areas.
2. Related work
China’s passive building energy-saving design concept
is in the exploratory stage. At present, its ultra-low
energy consumption design standard mainly refers to
the German “passive house” design certification stan­
dard. At present, three provinces in cold areas have
issued their own passive ultra-low energy consump­
tion building design standards. Although these three
design standards are different, they still take
Germany’s “passive house” design certification stan­
dard as the main reference. Therefore, this paper
mainly analyzes the architectural design standard of
“passive house” in Germany.
Passive buildings use external energy solar energy
to realize indoor temperature self-regulation, make full
use of solar heat energy, and meet the requirements of
“warm in winter and cool in summer”. Passive build­
ings can keep warm by collecting and absorbing solar
heat; use the reasonable layout of the building and the
internal space to strengthen air convection to reduce
the indoor temperature; use energy-saving and envir­
onment-friendly materials to store solar thermal
energy so as to reduce energy consumption.
2.1. Passive landscape wall insulation structure
The main characteristics of passive buildings repre­
sented by “passive houses” in Germany are low build­
ing energy consumption and high indoor comfort.
These characteristics are easier to highlight in new
buildings and better reflect the efficiency of “passive
404 J. ZHANG
Table 1. “Passive house” Building certification standard.
Heating Unit
Heating demand
½KWh=m a�
Cooling load ½W=m2 �
Dehumidification demand ½KWh=m2 a�
Cooling load ½W=m2 �
Air change times -pressure test n50 ½1=h�
Demand ½KWh=m2 a�
Output ½KWh=m2 a�
housing” buildings. The relevant standards of “passive
house” buildings can also be more intuitively reflected
(Chen, Wen, and Ding 2017).
As shown in Table 1, “passive house” building certi­
fication standards are mainly divided into four items:
heating demand, that is, the total annual heating is less
than or equal to 15 kwh/(m2 · a) or its heating load is
less than or equal to 10 W/m2; refrigeration demand,
that is, the total annual refrigeration energy consump­
tion is less than or equal to 15 kwh/(m2 · a) or the
refrigeration load is less than or equal to 10 W/m2,
while ensuring that the air dehumidification demand
meets the standard. Air tightness, which is to ensure
that the indoor pressure test – air change test n50 is less
than or equal to 0.6 times per hour; the demand for
renewable energy and the requirements for renewable
energy and renewable primary energy are newly intro­
duced in 2015. That is to add the requirements for
renewable energy on the basis of the total consumption
of non renewable energy to further reduce the depen­
dence of buildings on non renewable energy. While
meeting these standards, it is also necessary to ensure
that the indoor temperature is 20–26 °C and the indoor
relative humidity is 30% – 60% (Ma and Lu 2017).
2.2. Architectural comparison of China’s existing
energy-saving buildings and Germany’s “passive
housing”
According to the existing energy-saving design stan­
dards of residential buildings in severe cold and cold
areas in China and the current “passive housing” con­
struction standards in Germany, China adopts the heat
consumption index, while Germany adopts the heating
energy consumption demand. Because there are certain
differences in calculation methods and requirements for
indoor temperature, the data comparison is only for
reference. Cold regions with similar climate level to
Germany are selected as a reference. Compared with
the current 65% building energy saving standard in cold
areas, the standard stipulates that when the room tem­
perature is maintained at 18 °C, the heat consumption
index of the house is less than or equal to
41:48kWh=m2 � a (Deng 2019). The heating standard
Approach Standard Alternative standards
2 � 15 -
� - 10
refrigeration
� 15+
� -
Air tightness
� 0.6
renewable energy
� 45 � 15kwh=m2 a
� 60 Compensation by
changing production
of “passive house” buildings can be seen from the
above that the heating energy consumption demand
is less than or equal to 15kWh=m2 � a at room tempera­
ture 20°C. It can be seen that the standard of “passive
house” in Germany is about 1/3 of the energy-saving
standard in cold areas. As shown in table 2.6, the cur­
rent skill standard in cold areas is equivalent to the
energy-saving standard in Germany in 2009.(Chen 2019)
3. Definition and building standard of cold
area
Climate conditions have an important impact on the
design and application of building energy-saving mea­
sures. To study building energy-saving design, we
must first understand the relevant climate and geogra­
phical characteristics of the studied area.
3.1. Definition and characteristics of cold regions
According to the requirements of building thermal per­
formance, China classifies the climate characteristics into
7 regions and 20 sub regions. This paper analyzes and
studies the cold areas. China’s <General Principles for
Civil Buildings> stipulates in detail that the climate con­
ditions in cold areas are like this: the daily average tem­
perature in January is 0–10 °C; the daily average
temperature in July is 18–28 °C; the daily average tem­
perature of 90–145 days per year is ≤ 5 °C; and the daily
average temperature of less than 80 days is ≥ 25 °C (Wang
2019).
3.2. Design standard for exterior wall thermal
insulation system of passive buildings in cold
areas
The design standard of passive ultra-low energy
consumption buildings mainly refers to the
German “passive house” architectural design certifi­
cation standard. At present, provinces in cold areas
have successively issued energy-saving design stan­
dards for passive ultra-low energy consumption
buildings in their own province. However, due to
the difference of local climate, there are certain

Table 2. Comparison of design standards for exterior wall insulation system.
Unit: heat transfer coefficient K½W=ðm2 � KÞ�
Design standard for passive ultra low energy consumption buildings in
maintenance structure cold areas
exterior wall
Doors and windows
roofing
underground structure
differences in design standards. In order to facilitate
research, we choose <Passive low energy consump­
tion buildings – residential buildings in severe cold
and cold areas>in national building standard design
atlas 16j908-8 as standards on severe cold and cold
areas. It is compared with the cold area related
standards in the current domestic design standard
for energy efficiency of residential buildings in
severe cold and cold areas in <Design standard for
energy efficiency of residential buildings in severe
cold and cold areas>(Guo 2019), as is shown in
Table 2.
It can be seen intuitively from the above data that
the thermal insulation and energy-saving design stan­
dards of passive building exterior wall structure and
structure in direct contact with the exterior wall in cold
areas are significantly higher than the relevant stan­
dards of conventional building energy-saving design
in cold areas. When designing the external wall insula­
tion system of passive buildings in cold areas, we
should fully consider the practice status of the existing
external wall insulation system of buildings in China
and the combination of foreign advanced energy-
saving design concepts of passive buildings (Jiang
and Yin 2019).
4. Passive building wall structure
4.1. Analysis of passive wall insulation structure
In order to meet the design standard of ultra-low
energy consumption and combined with the current
situation of the project, after comparison, the external
wall insulation system of graphite polystyrene board
(GEPS) thin plastering external wall with relatively
mature construction technology is selected for the
external wall insulation system. The external wall ther­
mal insulation system gives priority to the thermal
insulation performance in winter. Therefore, the indoor
temperature in winter is set as 18 °C and the outdoor
temperature is – 5 °C according to the relevant climate
Table 3. Parameters of insulation layer of graphite polystyrene board.
Insulation index
Insulation size (length × high × thick)
Single block thickness
Flame retardancy
thermal conductivity
JOURNAL OF ASIAN ARCHITECTURE AND BUILDING ENGINEERING 405
Current building design energy saving standards in
cold areas
≤0.15 ≤0.50
≤0.10 ≤2.70
≤0.15 ≤0.50
≤0.19 ≤0.60
data in the design; indoor air dew point temperature is
10.12 °C; and the inner surface temperature of the
most unfavorable thermal bridge is 17.48 °C.
Combined with the data given by the passive house
certification software (PHPP) (Liguang and Jinyu 2019),
as is shown in Table 3.
The thickness of insulation layer of different wall
materials determines the heat storage and insula­
tion capacity of the wall, which affects the main
performance parameter of heat transfer coefficient
of enclosure structure.The insulation layer is pro­
vided with fire isolation belt according to relevant
fire protection regulations. The material is vertical
silk rock wool. Compared with the conventional
rock wool board, the vertical silk rock wool has
vertical fiber arrangement direction, stronger tensile
resistance and the same class A flame retardancy.
The thermal conductivity is slightly increased to
0.046 w/(m · K) (Huang, Xie, and Chen 2019). The
thermal insulation structure nodes of the outer wall
are shown in Figure 1.
In the external thermal insulation system of the
building, the thicker thermal insulation layer greatly
weakens the impact of the thermal bridge phenom­
enon on the building. The temperature of the inner
wall corner is lower than that of the inner wall, but
higher than the dew point temperature. There will be
no condensation and mildew, and the service life of
the wall will be relatively increased. For cold northern
areas, this method can effectively reduce building
energy consumption.
Figure 1 shows that the analysis of thermal insula­
tion structure is at the opening of wall doors and
windows. Aluminum clad low-e (6 + 12A + 6 + 12A
+ 6) double insulating glass doors and windows are
selected for the external windows and doors.
The dew point of the empty glass is – 60 °C, the air
tightness is grade 8, and the heat transfer coefficient
(calculated by the whole window after installation) is
0.8 W/(m2 · K) (Huang, Xie, and Chen 2019). The instal­
lation method is shown in Figure 2.
parameter
600 mm×600 mm×150 mm
Two specifications:75 mm, 150 mm
B1
0.033 W/(m·K)
406 J. ZHANG

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of wall insulation structure of the project.

Figure 2. Project exterior wall opening thermal insulation structure.

The standard heat cut-off bridge mode is adopted, in
which the thermal insulation cushion block is preset on
the outside of the wall, the “L” angle steel is fixed on the
cushion block, and then the doors and windows are fixed
on the angle steel. According to the ultra-low energy
consumption design standard, the waterproof and air
isolating film is laid on the inside of the door and window
frame, and the air permeable film is laid on the outside.
The self expanding sealing tape is used to fill the gap at
the joints to ensure the tightness. The frame and the
thermal insulation layer are located in the same vertical
position. It helps to prevent heat loss (Huang, Wu, and
Zhang 2018).
4.2. Analysis of thermal insulation structure at
the connection of wall, roof and underground
structure
Extruded polystyrene board (XPS) is selected for roof
insulation, with a thickness of 150 mm. Although it is in
the form of slope roof, the junction between the outer
wall and the roof is still in the form of parapet because of
organized water apron. The insulation structure here
adopts the insulation layer to cover the outer, top and
inner sides of the parapet to maintain integrity and con­
nect with the roof insulation layer. At the same time, the
insulation layer on the inner side and top of the daughter
 JOURNAL OF ASIAN ARCHITECTURE AND BUILDING ENGINEERING
shall be waterproof, the top of the parapet shall be trea­
ted with waterproof cover plate, and the water outlet of
the parapet shall be treated. Pay attention to the water­
proof of the insulation layer (Zhou, Bu, and Zhu 2019).
The insulation layer of the underground structure
shall be laid below the frozen soil layer. The extruded
polystyrene board (XPS) material with a thickness of
150 mm is selected as the insulation material accord­
ing to the design standard. Waterproof materials are
laid inside and outside the extruded polystyrene board
(XPS). Considering the small building volume, there is
no organized water dispersion (Wei and Zhu 2018).
4.3. Application analysis of other building
energy-saving measures
Since the main body of the project is the cast-in-place
concrete frame structure supplemented by the aerated
concrete block filling, it mainly relies on the inner
plastering treatment of the outer envelope to achieve
the air tightness standard. Transparent enclosure struc­
ture adopts aluminum-clad wood three-wave two-
cavity insulating glass doors and windows as men­
tioned above, and the overall heat transfer coefficient
is controlled at ≤0.8 W/(m2•K), meeting the design
standard of ultra-low energy consumption. In terms
of fresh air system, according to the standard heat
recovery fresh air system index recommended by the
German Passive Institute, it is selected among domes­
tic major manufacturers, and finally reaches the theo­
retical value of 79% effective “heat” recovery efficiency
in heating period and 69% effective “cold” recovery
efficiency in cooling period, so as to meet the design
requirements (Zhu, Wei, and Zhang 2018).
The heat collecting wall is also a passive building
energy-saving measure that can effectively reduce
building energy consumption. The structure uses sun­
light to irradiate the dark heat storage wall with glass
cover outside to heat the interlayer air between the
transparent cover plate and the outer surface of the
thick wall. Through the action of thermal pressure, the
air flows into the room to supply indoor heat. At the
same time, the wall itself directly guides indoor heat
through heat transfer and stores some energy, The
energy stored in the wall at night is released indoors;
on the other hand, the heat collection wall loses heat
to the outside by means of conduction, convection
and radiation through glass cover.
5. Experimental analysis of passive building
wall thermal energy storage
5.1. Building CFD model
The opening and closing modes of vents are differ­
ent in different seasons in winter and summer. If
the heat collection characteristics of the heat
407
collection wall and the distribution of air tempera­
ture field and velocity field under two different
seasonal conditions are simulated, it is recom­
mended to model separately according to different
ventilation modes. Under the heating condition in
winter, all the vents on the glass cover are closed,
and all the upper and lower vents on the heat
collection wall are opened. Because the purpose of
the experiment is to discuss the influence of heat
collection wall on indoor heating in winter, the
south wall structure can be regarded as a single-
layer windowless composite wall. At this time, the
model can be simplified into two parts: fluid
domain Part1 and solid domain part2, and four
vents connect the indoor space and air interlayer
(Yu 2018).
The positive direction of the X axis represents the
true north direction of the geographical location and
the direction of the thickness of the trump heat collec­
tion wall; The Z-axis direction is the height direction of
the collector wall system; the Y-axis direction is the
width direction of the experimental room, and the
positive direction of the Y-axis is the due east direction
of the geographical coordinates. The model air inter­
layer is 0.1 m thick, 2.8 m high and 3 m wide (Tang,
Zhong, and Yang 2018).
5.2. Boundary conditions and parameter settings
The calculation area is meshed with The Integrated
Computer Engineering and Manufacturing code for
Computational Fluid Dynamics (ICEMCFD), and the
cylindrical vent surface is divided by O-Block. Because
of the large velocity gradient and temperature gradi­
ent of the fluid here, it is locally encrypted [29]. After
reading the grid, check the grid first. According to the
software operation process, various parameter settings
are shown in Table 4:
The test temperature range is 0 ~ – 50 ° C and the
outdoor design temperature of the region −20°C is
selected as the set value of the free surface tempera­
ture boundary of the heat collector. According to the
analysis of the experimental monitoring data, the tem­
perature of other walls except the south-oriented heat
collecting wall does not fluctuate much and remains
stable at about 12°C in the heating cycle. Therefore,
285.15 K is taken as the set value for the temperature
boundary of other walls. The boundary conditions of
the wall are shown in Table 5.
The wall structure of the collector wall is the same
size as the experimental room, which is a composite
structure of 0.37 m brick wall + 0.1 m benzene board +
0.3 mm thick aluminum plate. The thickness of the air
interlayer is 0.1 m, and the aluminum plate is closely
attached to the benzene plate. The solar radiation
absorption coefficient on the surface of the aluminum
plate is 0.9, the emissivity is 0.1, the glass cover is 4 mm
408 J. ZHANG

Table 4. Experimental index parameter settings.

Set up items parameter numerical value
General Gravity acceleration select Z direction −9.82 m/s2
Models RNG turbulence model at low Reynolds number All parameters remain the default values
DO Radiation model Geographic location information, time zone, date ,44.27° N, 85.94° E, Dongba District, December 23 r
Cell Zone Conditions initial temperature 283.15 K
Solution Methods COUPLED-algorithm Second order up wind
Body Force Weighted
Solution Controls Relaxation coefficient default
Monitors Plane temperature of collector wall y = 0.25 m (Plane of vent), x = −0.47 m
Solution Initialization Standard initialization, 280.15 K
initial temperature
Number of iterations 20,000

Table 5. Boundary condition setting.

Boundary surface Boundary type Set value
Inlet (lower vent) Coupled coupled wall, the boundary type is opaque Internal emissivity 0.85, not involved in solar radiation
Outlet (upper vent) Coupled coupled wall, the boundary type is opaque Internal emissivity 0.85, not involved in solar radiation
External surface of collector wall Coupled coupled wall, the boundary type is opaque Internal emissivity 0.85, not involved in solar radiation
Glass cover Mixed mixed wall; the boundary type is translucent. Outdoor temperature −25 °C, participate in solar radiation.
Other wall surface The temperature wall, the boundary type is opaque. 285.15 K, does not participate in solar radiation.

flat glass, the solar radiation transmission coefficient is
0.85, and the absorption coefficient is 0.15. The physical
parameters used in the simulation are shown in Table 6.
Finally, the iterative calculation results are visualized
and analyzed in the result.
6. Simulation results of thermal environment
under steady-state conditions in winter
This section mainly simulates the temperature field
and velocity field distribution characteristics of
indoor air, vents and the surface of the collector
wall when the heat exchange and air flow inside
the air interlayer of the collector wall reach a stable
state.
6.1. Temperature field analysis
The inspection or test of the building and the
inspection of the integrity of the external wall
insulation layer of the building, which is the ther­
mal bridge inspection, can be carried out for local
or single-sided walls. This is mainly achieved
through the infrared thermal imaging equipment.
During detection, the infrared thermal imaging
equipment can view the detection target and
record the imaging changes. Through the color
contrast or change on the imaging, we can check
whether there is a thermal bridge at the target,
that is to say, whether the insulation layer is com­
plete.Testo 425 anemometer is used to measure
the wind speed and temperature at different
locations.
Indoor temperature field analysis:Figure 3 shows
the temperature distribution given by the infrared
thermal imaging equipment in the building. Figure 3
also shows the temperature field cloud map of the
section x = 1.5 m, Y = 0.25 m, and Z = 1.5 m in the
calculated area. It can be seen that, in the steady state,
the temperature distribution of the section presents
a trend of increasing along the Z-axis and decreasing
along the X-axis. The maximum temperature differ­
ence between the upper and lower parts of the room
can be up to 7°C. Under partly cloudy weather condi­
tions (namely, the sun direction vector X:0.8844,
Y:0.0022,Z:-0.466 and Sunshinefactor is set as 0.75),
the simulated value of the room center point P is
taken as the indoor average temperature, and the
indoor average temperature is calculated as 12.36°C
by steady-state solution.
Analysis of the temperature field of the vent: It can be
seen from the simulation results in Figure 3 that the
temperature difference between the center points of
the upper and lower vents is about 27.2°C in the steady
state. The error between actual measurement and simu­
lation is mainly due to the small amount of outdoor cold
air infiltration caused by the air tightness of the experi­
mental room, causing the temperature near the ground

Table 6. Physical parameters of building materials.

Material name Temperature (°C) Density (kg/m3) Thermal conductivity (W/m⋅K) Specific heat capacity (J/Kg⋅K)
Ordinary clay brick 23 1795 0.83 876
air - Incompressible ideal gas - -
Blue painted aluminum plate 23 2816 201.5 831
Flat glass 23 2635 0.72 760
EPS benzene board 23 34 0.46 1.37
 JOURNAL OF ASIAN ARCHITECTURE AND BUILDING ENGINEERING 409

Figure 3. Schematic diagram of section temperature distribution at y = 0.25 m, x = 1.5 m, z = 1.5 m.

Figure 4. Schematic diagram of section temperature distribution at x = −0.47 m.

layer, that is, the lower vent to be lower than the simula­ surface of the collector wall: Figure 4 and Figure 5 are
tion result, and the temperature difference between the the distribution cloud diagrams of the temperature field
upper and lower vents is larger than the simulation and the density field on the outer surface of the collec­
result. 3) Analysis of the temperature field on the outer tor wall (ie x = −0.47 m section).

Figure 5. Schematic diagram of section air density distribution at x = −0.47 m.

410 J. ZHANG
Density (Kg/m3)
Figure 6. Schematic diagram of temperature and density distribution on the outside of solar wall.
It can be seen from Fig. 4 and 5 that when the
indoor air enters the cavity through the air inlet, the
temperature is low and the density is high, and then
flows upward under the action of buoyancy. While
heat exchange occurs with the wall, the temperature
increases and the density decreases. The contours of
temperature and density are distributed uniformly and
symmetrically. The highest temperature area is not
near the air outlet. The hot air gathers up to the center
of the wall during the upward flow. After being
blocked by the top of the wall, it is forced to flow
around on both sides. The density distribution near
the air outlet is vortex-like. Insert 13 detection points
uniformly on the line L intersecting the section with
y = 1.5 m and the line N intersecting with the y = 0.25 m
section respectively, and process the distribution char­
acteristics of the wall temperature and density along
the Z axis, as shown in Figure 6.
As shown in Figure 6, there is an inflection point at
h = 0.4 m and h = 2.0 m, indicating that the tempera­
ture near the upper and lower vents is lower than the
adjacent areas, the temperature gradient is larger, and
the density change rate is larger. When the wall height
is in the range of [1 m, 2 m], the temperature tends to
Figure 7. Schematic diagram of section wind speed profile at y = 0.25 m.
be stable; the wall width is in the range of [0.25 m,
2.75 m], and the density decreases linearly. On the
straight line N, the temperature at the center point of
the air outlet is 316.04 K, the temperature at the same
height point as the air outlet on the straight line L is
325.38 K, and the temperature difference between the
two points is 9.34°C. The upper part of the wall has
a temperature about 10°C higher than the air outlet
area.
6.2. Velocity field analysis
According to the test results in Figure 7, the wind
speeds at the center points of the upper and lower
vents are 0.61 m/s and 0.48 m/s, respectively, in oppo­
site directions.
The distribution of wind speed can be divided into
three characteristic areas, the first is located in the
upper (hot air area), the second in the bottom (cold
air convergence area), and the third is the relatively
stable wind speed under volume force (thermal strati­
fication area), where the speed is very low, about
0.009 m/s. From the distribution characteristics of tem­
perature field and wind speed field, it can be seen that

in winter heating period, starting from the rising of the
sun, with the increase of the temperature of the heat
collecting wall, the air in the cavity is heated, the heat
cycle begins to strengthen with the delay of time, and
the speed of the vent also increases. When the velocity
field of the vent is stable, the corresponding tempera­
ture field also reaches the maximum value. However,
whether the thermal cycle efficiency between the
indoor and the air interlayer changes due to the
change of the diameter of the vent is not directly
displayed in the steady-state wind speed distribution
graph, and further dimensional simulation analysis of
the vent is needed. It is worth noting that when the
wind speed slows down to the thermal cycle stop, if
the vent is not closed in time, the cold air “backflow”
phenomenon (ie reverse thermal cycle) will occur. This
process can quickly take away the indoor heat,
increase the temperature difference between day and
night in the room, and reduce Indoor thermal com­
fort [30].
Taking into account the great thermal inertia of
the wall structure of the collector wall, in order to
simulate as accurately as possible the influence of
the outdoor solar illuminance on the heat collection
performance of the collector wall in winter, the
transient simulation analysis of the above model is
carried out to study the wall and the law of tem­
perature change in the cavity.
6.3. Analysis of thermal environment test results
under transient conditions in winter
Considering the great thermal inertia of the wall
structure of the heat collection wall, in order to
test the influence of outdoor solar irradiance on
the heat collection performance of the heat collec­
tion wall in winter as accurately as possible, the
transient test analysis of the above model is carried
out to study the temperature change law in the
wall and cavity [29].
600
450
Solar radiation (W/m2)
300
150
0
10:00
Figure 8. Schematic diagram of dynamic distribution of temperature on inner and outer surface of heat-collecting wall.
JOURNAL OF ASIAN ARCHITECTURE AND BUILDING ENGINEERING 411
6.3.1. Dynamic analysis of the temperature field of
the collector wall
At the outer surface (wallout) 0.34 m, 1.5 m, 2.46 m and
the inner surface (wallin) 0.34 m, 1.5 m, 2.46 m of the
solar collector wall (that is, compared with the mea­
sured A/B/C/A’/B’/ C’ corresponding point) to insert 6
temperature detection points to extract the test data
of the wall temperature distribution when the solar
irradiance changes in 24 hours. Among them, Ts-
wallout represents the transient test value of the exter­
nal surface of the solar collector wall, and Ts-wallin
represents the transient test value of the internal sur­
face of the solar collector wall. After data processing, it
is as shown in Figure 8.
As time goes by, the temperature gradient on the
inner surface of the wall is significantly higher than
that on the outer surface. The temperature gradient
on the outer surface of the wall increases rapidly from
7.2°C at 10:00 to 46.8°C at 15:00. The inner surface of
the wall increases from 4.1 °C at 10:00 to 11.3 °C at
15:00. With the attenuation of radiant illuminance, the
temperature on both the inside and outside of the wall
decreases to different degrees. Among them, the tem­
perature on the outside of the heat-collecting wall
decreases most obviously, from the peak value of
46.8°C to 20.3 °C at 20:00, and then decreases slowly.
The inner surface temperature of the wall decreases
slowly from the highest point of 11.3 °C to 7.1 °C, and
then basically tends to be stable. This is because the
thermal inertia of the wall affects its heat storage and
heat transfer process.
6.4. Experimental results
The research project in this paper is located in the cold
area of China’s architectural climate division. This area
belongs to the continental climate area. The coldest
January average temperature is – 15.2 °C; the lowest
temperature is – 28.5 °C; the hottest July average
temperature is 24.3 °C; the highest temperature is
12:00 14:00 16:00 18:00
Time
412 J. ZHANG
Table 7. Heat transfer coefficient of optimized structure.
Structure Exterior wall Roofing
K(W/(m2.K)) 0.12 0.11
34.4 °C; and the annual temperature difference is more
than 30 °C. The water fall is mostly concentrated in
summer, and the snow cover time in winter is long for
more than 4 months. This area belongs to a typical cold
climate. It is cold and lasts a long time in winter.
Although the maximum temperature in summer also
reaches more than 30 °C, but the duration is short.
Moreover, based on the architectural characteristics
of this scheme, the school is on holiday in the hottest
time in summer, and the building will also be closed.
Therefore, the general design strategy of this scheme is
to consider only thermal insulation in winter, not ther­
mal insulation. The total area of the project is about
3800 m2, with a total of 3 floors. The passive building
design concept and ultra-low energy consumption
design standard are demonstrated for public buildings
and residential buildings respectively.
The key parameters of passive building envelope
and thermal bridge structure involved in this paper
are optimized. Table 7 shows the key parameters of
passive building envelope after optimization. Based on
the climate characteristics of the northern city, the
energy consumption of the building model is simu­
lated and the results are summarized. Figure 9 shows
the variation curve of indoor average temperature and
outdoor average temperature after optimization in
winter, Table 8 is the summary of building energy
efficiency rate, which summarizes the performance
Figure 9. Comparison of indoor and outdoor average temperature in winter.
Table 8. Building energy efficiency after optimization.
performance Refrigeration energy Functional energy
index consumption (KW.h/m2) consumption (KW.h/m2)
Unit area index 9.28 19.21
Energy saving 32.14 77.35
rate (%)
Floor Interior wall Outer window
0.27 0.90 0.82
indicators of passive buildings in this area. Figure 10
shows the hourly peak temperature change diagram of
the building, and analyzes the annual load energy-
saving performance of the building.
It can be seen from Figure 9 that after adopting
the building envelope system with high-efficiency
thermal insulation, the thermal insulation perfor­
mance of the optimized building is significantly
enhanced. In the coldest season, the indoor tem­
perature of the building can be maintained above
10 °C. Only efficient fresh air heat exchange can
meet the requirements of human comfort without
additional main heating equipment.
It can be seen from Table 8 that for the passive
building after optimizing the main design para­
meters of the outer envelope, the unit area load
in the cooling period is 9.28 kw · H/m2, which is
38.10% of the standard index. The unit area load in
the heating period is 19.21, which is lower than the
standard index of 1.42 kw · H/m2. Compared with
the initial benchmark building performance index,
the energy saving rate of the building body can
reach 72.34%. Among them, the saving ratio of
heating load is 77.35%, and the energy-saving rate
of power consumption is 86.32%.
In summary, the hourly and outdoor temperature of
buildings changes greatly, but in the passive buildings
with efficient insulation system and strict air tightness,
Total energy Average power CO2Emissions
consumption (KW.h/m2) consumption (KW.h/m2) (Kg/m2)
27.84 28.76 51.08
72.34 86.32 61.02
 JOURNAL OF ASIAN ARCHITECTURE AND BUILDING ENGINEERING
the indoor temperature is basically constant at 25 °C,
which meets the requirements of human comfort and
indicates that the stability of buildings is high.
7. Conclusion
This paper mainly studies and analyzes the teaching
buildings in severe cold areas. According to the climate
characteristics of severe cold areas and the timeliness
of such buildings, it is determined to focus on thermal
insulation. Through the building energy-saving soft­
ware, the application of passive low-energy technol­
ogy suitable for severe cold areas in teaching buildings
is studied, the passive low-energy technology is
applied to the building scheme, and the energy effi­
ciency is analyzed. It is concluded that the passive low
energy consumption technology is very suitable for
use in severe cold areas. It will bring huge economic
benefits and has a good application prospect.
This paper chooses a model of campus buildings in
severe cold areas, which will be helpful to promote
technology and improve people’s awareness of passive
low energy consumption technology. However, the
passive low energy consumption technology in teach­
ing buildings in severe cold areas studied in this paper
not only has regional problems, but also has limita­
tions, so it is difficult to generalize. It is also hoped that
there will be more research on different types of build­
ings in the future.
(1) Thermal inertia has a great influence on the heat
storage and heat transfer process of the collector wall.
Geographical location and wall thermal inertia directly
affect the opening and closing time of the vents during
the winter heating period of the passive solar house. In
Xinjiang, the vents should be opened about 2 hours
after the sun rises, and the vents should be closed 1–
2 hours before the sun sets. Beware of cold air “back­
flowing” and affecting indoor thermal comfort.
(2) In severe cold areas, uneven indoor heating is
the key to improving the indoor thermal environment
of passive solar houses. The indoor heat flow circula­
tion should be increased as much as possible, and the
air tightness of windows and glass covers should be
improved to promote relatively uniform temperature
distribution. The upper middle area of the traditional
solar collector wall has a higher temperature than the
air outlet area. It is recommended to add an air outlet
here to improve the indoor thermal cycle efficiency
and achieve the effect of improving the indoor thermal
environment.
(3) Weather conditions (solar radiation) have
a greater impact on the heat collection efficiency of
the heat collection wall. Specifically, the average tem­
perature difference between a room with a new louver
collector wall system and a room with a traditional
collector wall is quite different under sunny and cloudy
weather conditions. During the entire test period, the
413
average indoor temperature of the room of the new
louver collector wall system is 3.1°C higher than that of
the room with the traditional collector wall; The max­
imum temperature of the room of the new louver
collector wall system and the room with the traditional
collector wall is worse. It is 2.4°C. Therefore, in different
weather conditions, the room with the new louvered
collector wall system can not only increase the average
indoor temperature but also reduce the fluctuation of
the indoor temperature, compared with the room with
the traditional collector wall, and the indoor thermal
comfort has been significantly improved.
The next research goal is to promote the promotion
and application of ultra-low-energy buildings as soon
as possible, so that our country’s energy-saving cause
continues to develop, and zero-energy buildings and
high-capacity buildings are the new research goals.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the
author(s).
Notes on contributor
I am Zhang Jizhi. I come from China . I am forty years old. I am
a teacher of southeast university Chenxian College. I have
worked there since 2007. Now, I am an associate professor.
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