Thermal and energy analysis of a Chinese kang

About 67 million Chinese kangs are still used by about 175 million people in China today. The kang utilizes biomass burning for space heating and hence reduces the use of commercial energy. However, the existing design of kangs is largely based on the accumulated experience of craftsmen, for lack of scientific studies and engineering design guidelines. Poor construction of kangs also leads to serious indoor air pollution. In this paper, a macroscopic smoke flow and heat transfer model of an elevated kang is integrated in a widely-used building energy analysis software in China-DeST, and the integrated software can be used for the thermal performance analysis of kang-integrated houses. A typical house with kangs in various villages of northern China is chosen as a case study. The annual performance of the kang under different insulations of building envelope and climatic conditions are discussed. Based on the simulation results, it is found that the thermal comfort requirement of the outside surface of the upper kang plate can be met by a proper construction of the kang and selection of the appropriate firing pattern. The better the insulation of the building envelope is or the better the room air tightness is, the greater the indoor air temperature rise and the greater the building heating load contribution of the kang. In the eight selected cities in northern China, the use of kang can meet 50%-80% of the house heating load. © Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010.