A combined analytical model for increasing the accuracy of heat emission predictions in rooms heated by radiators

Abstract The efficiency of heat emitters plays an important role in the improvement of building energy performance, especially in the context of system and product comparison. In particular, it can be directly related to thermal comfort via the operative temperature that is effectively sensed by the users. For the first time in the literature, in this paper we develop a combined analytical model for room and radiator that computes directly the heat output required to maintain a specific operative temperature. The total heat balance of the enclosure is used to accurately quantify and compare the heat emission losses of different radiator types via an analytical calculation of the operative temperature. This determines the efficiency of a selection of panel radiators with different surface temperature, radiation fraction and number of panels, which were tested in a chamber conforming to the EN 442-2 standard. Additionally, we assess the related annual energy consumption in different climates by carrying out annual simulations in old (without heat recovery) and new (with heat recovery) building types located in Tallinn, Estonia and Strasbourg, France. In the new building we find a similar performance for all the radiators. In the old building however, one radiator outperforms the other two with up to 1.38% lower annual energy consumption, due to smaller rear losses and higher thermal comfort provided by the larger front panel surface.