Comparison of the Floor and Infrared Radiant Heating System in Large-Space Buildings

Radiant heating system has been widely used in residential and office buildings due to its energy-saving and enhanced thermal comfort features. For large space building heating, there was no consistent answer. In this paper, the thermal and energy consumption performances of infrared radiant heating and floor, heating system in an aircraft hangar was compared using numerical simulation methods. The mean air temperature in the occupied zone, vertical temperature difference and energy efficiency of these two heating systems were analysed by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model, which was validated by the reported experimental results. The results indicated that both of the systems could meet the requirements of the design temperature. The temperature distribution of the floor radiant heating system was much uniform than that of the infrared radiant heating system in the aircraft hangar. With energy-utilization coefficient of 0.93, the floor radiant heating system performed higher energy efficiency than that of infrared radiant heating. The energy consumption per floor per unit temperature difference for infrared radiant was nearly 1.5 times that of floor radiant heating system.