Valuation thermal and light performance of transparent solar protections

This research intended to evaluate thermal and light performance of transparent solar protections using measurements in full scale test cells, located in the city of Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil. Surface (window and shading device) and internal air temperatures were compared for six test cells. One of them was unprotected for reference purposes, another was obstructed with a metallic shading device and the other four had transparent glass horizontal and vertical shades installed. For light performance evaluation were measured the daylight in the center of each test cell and outside. Four different types of glass with different optical properties were selected: float clear glass, mini-boreal printed glass, float blue glass and metallic silver reflective glass. The results of the thermal appraisal showed that silver reflective glass, float blue and printed glass shadings achieved similar performance, not very different to the ones obtained for the metallic shading device. Therefore the float clear glass shading did not attain a satisfactory result. Regarding the light performance of the glasses shading devices it was concluded that printed glass shadings presents very good results and silver reflective glass reduced the daylight inside the test cell.