Bldg-sim] Modeling tool for daylight, Energy, Thermal comfort analysis

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Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 10:47:20 +0530 (IST)
From: Rathna Shree
To: bldg
Subject: [Bldg-sim] Modeling tool for daylight, Energy, Thermal
comfort analysis
Message-ID: <935834.21570.qm at web95906.mail.in.yahoo.com>
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Dear All,

Can you please suggest the best modeling tool which has the
capabilities to perform Daylight simulation, Thermal comfort analysis
in non AC spaces of a building and Energy simulation.

I am using dialux for daylight simulation, Visual Doe for Energy
simulation and Transys for Thermal comfort analysis. I am inputting
the same details thrice in different softwares. So is there any
software which can perform all the 3 analysis in one go.

Regards,
Rathnashree

------------------------------------------------------------

Hello Rathmashree,

I suggest you use CODYRUN. Is a french software dedicated to both
research and consulting firms. You can make the 3 studies (Energy
simulation, Daylight and thermal confort).that you want at the same
time. For more information about this software, you can write to
Professor Harry Boyer (Founder of the software) to this mail : harry.boyer at univ-reunion.fr

Best regards,

PhD / Engineer A. H. Fakra

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Hamada,

Unfortunately, you've chosen the worst possible building for analysis. There are several reasons for this.

First, there is no single U.S. tool that does an accurate analysis of what you are asking for. There are some that perform simplified analysis of most of the parameters you are looking for, but none do it all right (that I?m aware of). Some of the European codes are getting close, for example ESPr and/or IES/VE, but each has its limitations.

To estimate the thermal analysis with Visual DOE (i.e., DOE-2.1e) or EQUEST (i.e., DOE-2.2) you?d need to have at least one zone that is conditioned in order to simulate conditions in an unconditioned space. So, although it is possible to perform such a simulation, you have to go to great lengths to do this with canned simulations such as DOE-2.1e and DOE-2.2. One successful project that did this for a Buddhist temple was done by Dr. Sreshthaputra, which you can read about in:

Sreshthaputra, A., Haberl, J., Andrews, M. 2004. ?Improving Building Design and Operation .of a Thai Buddhist Temple,? Energy and Buildings, Vol. 36, pp. 481-494.

Or in his thesis:

Atch Sreshthaputra, 2004. ?Building Design and Operation for Improving Thermal Comfort in Naturally Ventilated Buildings in a Hot and Humid Climate,? Department of Architecture, Texas A&M University.

In this work, which was calibrated to real data from the temple, Atch created a fictitious zone that did nothing, then proceeded to model the temple as a unconditioned zone, which worked with one exception that it did not handle the air flows. To get around this Atch ran CFD with a program that used a 3D model from the CHAM engine, then passed the airflows back to DOE-2 each hour to do the run, which calculated the dynamic heat transfer, then back to the CFD for the next hour?s airflow, etc., (taking 24 hours to simulate 24 hours on 2003ish Pentium, not exactly fast).

Second, you can probably get an estimate of the daylighting using DOE-2.1e or DOE-2.2 that should be accurate for and sidelights if you know the internal geometry, including surface characteristics, since they use the split-flux method. More accurate daylighting simulations can be done with RADIANCE or annual simulations with DAYSIM, or perhaps one of the new annual variants of RADIANCE.

Third, true calculations of thermal comfort would require CFD and a internal radiation network (should interior surfaces get hot or cold), which further complicate things.

So, it can be done, but there are only a few efforts in the literature that give solid advice on how to do this, probably more as time goes on. Getting all this in one package is probably not there yet. Probably still a good topic for a Ph.D. thesis.

Jeff S. Haberl, Ph.D.,P.E., FASHRAE

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Did I miss something? I would have started with EnergyPlus.

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Thanks Doug,

My oversight. You can certainly put EnergyPlus on the list. This would help some things, yet cause pain for others. It would help for the internal radiation network, better convection models, and might be useful for its nodal air flow analysis.

However, I believe the daylighting model in DOE-2 is a stronger model, but not as strong as DAYSIM. Second, the Winklemann-Huang ground coupling in DOE-2 is still hard to beat, which would be important for an unconditioned building. Finally, if it took 24 hours to ping-pong CFD and DOE-2, it would take much longer to ping-pong EnergyPlus with CFD (perhaps Wangda's graphics processsor would help this).

Perhaps I should have said, in the U.S. one could start with a legacy DOE-2 code and modify it as a warm up. Either way, there still remains no single code in the U.S. that does it all with the most accurate algorithms, including DOE-2,
TRNSYS or EnergyPlus and/or their derivatives. I can't speak for ESPr or IES/VE, but I suspect they have their warts as well.

Jeff S. Haberl, Ph.D.,P.E., FASHRAE

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Dear Prof. Haberl,

Is that your remarks are addressed directlty to me ? is what I do
understand that you criticize the software CODYRUN ? If this is not
the case, I apologize to you for that question.

best regards.

A. H. Fakra

Le 25 avr. 11 ? 06:49, Jeff Haberl a ?crit :

ali hamada fakra's picture
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Hamada,

I did not mention nor comment on CODYRUN as I am not familiar with this software.

Jeff S. Haberl, Ph.D.,P.E., FASHRAE

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Hello,

we tried out a software named PARASOL, developed by LTH SWEDEN. but since we wanted to model rollable blinds with PV-included, adding also a special control agorithm, we did our own model in python.
by using PARASOL you may do some postprocessing for the comfort factors. also may point you to Mathcad which allows to do all at a macroscopic level with the help of some existing code and WYSIWYG coding.

best regards

Gerfried

Her is the project brief http://www.effiziente.st/sowa_en.htm
and here a new questionnaire about building integrated solar http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HHNBJ2B

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Dear Prof. Haberl,

I apologize for the misunderstanding from me and wish you a very good
day.

A. H. Fakra

Le 25 avr. 11 ? 20:55, Jeff Haberl a ?crit :

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Hi Gerfried,

Do you mean KTH Sweden? You said LTH! KTH do some work with Equa
Simulation AB and their system IDA ICE is very promising. The only item
on the list it doesn't tick is the daylighting - and only then if you
want output similar to Radiance. However, if you aren't interested in a
daylight map it does have a fully integrated window shading and daylight
model that interacts with the thermal simulation at runtime - like E+.
To my knowledge, I am not aware that IES satisfies window shading models
that interact with daylight controls at runtime - perhaps Pete Murray
could comment.

Best regards

Chris Yates

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