Heat transfer simulation of window frames with SPHinXsys
Haotian Ji, Dong Wu, Chi Zhang, Xiangyu Hu
TL;DR
The paper addresses heat transfer in window-frame assemblies under convective boundary conditions defined by ISO10077-2:2012. It advances a SPH-based approach using the SPHinXsys framework to model multi-material window sections, deriving a discretized diffusion solver with convection terms and computing equivalent air-cavity conductivities for varied geometries and ventilation states. Validation against three ISO-based benchmarks (D2, D4, D7) shows $|\text{error}_{L^{2D}}|$ within $\pm 3\%$ and $|\text{error}_{U_f}|$ within $\pm 5\%$, confirming accuracy and robustness. The work demonstrates SPH’s viability for window-frame thermal analysis and lays groundwork for future multi-physics coupling in building energy simulations.
Abstract
Maintaining a comfortable temperature inside a building requires appropriate thermal insulation of windows, which can be optimised iteratively with numerical simulation. Smoothed particle hydrodynamics(SPH) is a fully Lagrangian method widely used for simulating multi-physics applications with high computational efficiency and accuracy. It is advantageous in physically coupled problems such as heat-fluid-solid or any other type of physically coupled simulations. The focus of this study is to simulate the heat transfer process in various window frames under convective boundary conditions according to ISO10077-2:2012. This paper demonstrates the accuracy and compatibility of SPH when dealing with heat transfer problems, which ensures further development of thermal coupling with other physical fields. The results and methods used in this paper provide some guidance on how to properly handle heat transfer simulations using SPH, which can be extended to multi-physics coupled simulations in the future.