Heliodon

Shortly after World War II, in the 1950s, there was a wide interest in producing building design techniques that correspond to the climate.

Thermoheliodon was a domed insulated evaluation bed for scaled architectural models in certain climatic conditions measured to a high level of calculation and accuracy.

[2] The institution aimed to enhance housing conditions and development of local resources for construction in colonial territories.

[2] The device can shift and tilt to obtain the accurate position of the sun on any given day, time, or location.

[2] In the 1960s, a heliodon was invented by Gershon Fruhling in Israel, recorded by the United States Patent Office.

EPFL Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory LESO-PB in Lausanne designed a robotic heliodon to simulate direct light.

[4] After the 2000s, Prof. Norbert Lechner, an architect, LEED AP and an expert in energy responsive architecture has invented a manual Sun Emulator Heliodon.

[5] Although the device can hold only small architectural scale models, it is a great instrument for teaching solar geometry.

Since 2004, the Italian company betanit.com is developing various heliodons designed by architect Giulio M. Podesta for use in daylighting laboratories of universities and architectural firms.

[6] Kwok Pun Cheung, a professor and researcher at the Department of Architecture in Hong Kong University developed various heliodons.

The angle of any site of Earth to the solar beam is determined by The change due to date is the most difficult to visualize.

In general, the date adjustment causes the most difficulty for the heliodon designer, while the light source presents the most problems in use.

All heliodons can benefit by including a moveable, tiltable device that can be set to match any surface on a model to show angle of incidence.

The radius of the ring for the angle is equal to its tangent times the height of the shadow casting pointer.

Considering the characteristics, the manual sun emulator is also excellent for explaining solar dynamics and cardinal points to children in a function, scientific and fun way of demonstration.

It is used to evaluate scale models in a compact space with a fixed light source with the support of a robotic platform.

The robotic heliodon can process frequent tests and evaluations on bigger and heavier models than the manual ones to produce precise results for experiments.

They are used for daylighting studies in universities, research facilities and development laboratories for sustainable building designs.

This kind of robotic heliodon is used separately or integrated with dome artificial sky for presentation, lighting design and research purposes.

[23] The heliodon is featured in the handbook as a lighting software tool that is used to study daylighting performance for physical scale models.