Computer simulation of sunlight concentration due to façade shape: application to the 2013 Death Ray at Fenchurch Street, London
File(s)Computer simulation of sunlight _Taylor and Francis.pdf (2.29 MB)
Published version
Author(s)
Zhu, Jiajie
Jahn, Wolfram
Rein, Guillermo
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Reflected sunlight from the Walkie-Talkie building in 20 Fenchurch Street, London, was reported to have caused the melting of plastic components of a car parked at street level in late August of 2013. The incident was explained by the concave-shaped south façade of the building, which converges solar radiation into a hotspot. In this study, we test the sunlight concentation hypothesis with a lighting simulation. A geometry model with material properties was created, and different weather situations were modelled. The results are illustrated in irradiance maps indicating time, position and peak heat fluxes. The highest simulated flux on the day of the incident was 3320 Wm−2 (10 to 15 fold increase compared to direct solar radiation). Additionally, the specific time and day for maximum heat fluxes between June and December were determined . For the worst scenario, which was avoided becuase the sky was partially cover with clouds that day and the hotspot did not fall on street level, the simulations showed that the peak heat flux would have reached well over 4000 Wm−2.
Date Issued
2019-07-04
Date Acceptance
2018-10-16
Citation
Journal of Building Performance Simulation, 2019, 12 (4), pp.378-387
ISSN
1940-1507
Publisher
Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Start Page
378
End Page
387
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Building Performance Simulation
Volume
12
Issue
4
Copyright Statement
© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
), which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
), which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Subjects
Science & Technology
Technology
Construction & Building Technology
glare
lighting simulations
sunlight
urban enviroment
1201 Architecture
1202 Building
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2018-11-22