New radiant-convective heating terminal improves indoor thermal environment for intermittent heating

A recent study published in Engineering, “Indoor Thermal Environment Improvement Based on Switchable Radiation/Convection-Combined Intermittent Heating: Comparison between Conventional Terminals and Integrated Novel Terminal,” conducted by researchers including Hongli Sun, Yifan Wu, and Borong Lin, has proposed a novel radiant-convective heating terminal for intermittent heating, which shows great potential in improving indoor thermal environment and energy efficiency.

The study highlights that intermittent heating is an energy-saving heating mode worth promoting, especially in residential heating scenarios. However, conventional radiant and convective heating terminals have limitations in achieving both intermittence and thermal comfort. To address this, the researchers proposed a switchable convective-radiant heating regulation method and a novel combined radiant-convective heating terminal.

The experiments showed that the novel terminal could initially heat up a typical residential space within 20–40 min and then stabilize the room temperature in a comfortable range of 18–22 ℃. It also demonstrated better heating performance than the combination of two conventional terminals in terms of heating capacity, flexibility, and thermal response.

The switchable mode of the novel terminal was found to provide rapid and comfortable steady-state heating, making it an efficient choice for intermittent heating in low-heating-load areas. Additionally, the indoor environmental characteristics of the radiant-convective terminal under different modes were analyzed through experiment and numerical simulation, providing implications for the optimal design of terminal heat transfer in the future.

Overall, the study suggests that a single type of radiant-convective terminal can replace the combined use of two conventional heating terminals, reducing cost and simplifying the system. This finding can serve as a guide for low-load intermittent heating.

The paper “Indoor Thermal Environment Improvement Based on Switchable Radiation/Convection-Combined Intermittent Heating: Comparison between Conventional Terminals and Integrated Novel Terminal,” authored by Hongli Sun, Yifan Wu, Borong Lin, Mengfan Duan, Zixu Yang, Hengxin Zhao, Ziliang Wei, Shenfei Yu, Songjun Li, Junkang Song. Full text of the open access paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eng.2024.08.020. For more information about the Engineering, follow us on X (https://twitter.com/EngineeringJrnl) & like us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/EngineeringJrnl).