Modeling and Design a Special Type of Passive Solar Greenhouse in Cold Climate by TRNSYS

Abstract

To improve the thermal performance, storage and saving heat solarenergy of conventional greenhouse, a passive solar greenhouse wasbuilt which its north wall was made of soil. The bottom part of thenorth, south, west and east walls were sloping and constructedbelow ground surface. The indoor air temperature was measuredduring January and February. To optimize the size of greenhouse incold climate condition a TRNSYS model was created and validatedusing experimental data. According to the results obtained, TotalIncident Solar Radiation (TISR) in the north wall was 484 MJduring January and February and there was the possibility ofcultivation in it. More specifically, the variation of TISR during 60days varied from 190 to 3811 kJ h-1 m-2. The indoor air temperatureof the greenhouse varied from -4.3 to 42.4 °C while the outdoortemperature fluctuated between -13.8 to 10.6 °C. In addition, thedifferential temperature between modeled and measured data atclimate conditions of snowy, rainy, cloudy and sunny days were 2.3,0.2, 0.2, and 2.6 °C during daytime and -1.8, -2, 0.3 and 1 °C atnighttime, respectively. The obtained coefficient of determination(R2) was 95.95% for measured and modeled data.