A Simplified Model for Radiative Transfer in Building Enclosures With Low Emissivity Walls: Development and Application to Radiant Barrier Insulation

This paper deals with a simplified model of radiative heat transfer in building enclosures with low emissivity walls. The approach is based on an existing simplified model, well known and used in building multizone simulation codes, for the long wave exchanges in building enclosures. This method is simply extended to the case of a cavity including a very low emissivity wall, and it is shown that the obtained formalism is similar to the one used in the case of the based model, convenient for enclosures with only black walls (blackbody assumption). The proposed model has been integrated into a building simulation code and is based on simple examples; it is shown that intermediate results between the imprecise initial simple model and the more precise detailed model, the net-radiosity method, can be obtained. Finally, an application of the model is made for an existing experimental test cell including a radiant barrier insulation product, well used in Reunion Island for thermal insulation of roofs. With an efficacy based on the very low emissivity of their surfaces and the consequent decrease in radiative heat transfer through the wall in which they are included, the proposed simplified model leads to results very close to those of the reference method, the net-radiosity method.