IES-VE Energy

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Leon,

Nice to get this update on CONTAM97R. However, I'm surprised that the
solutions
are still "onion" (iterating between thermal and air flow program within
each time step,
for the benefit of those unfamiliar with the terminology) and
"ping-pong" (passing boundary
conditions without iteration), and not simultaneous, especially since
Jim was quite
critical of the ping-pong approach I was proposing for the
EnergyPlus/COMIS link back
in 2002. I'd also like to hear more about CONTAM 3.0 with CFD
capability. Is this intended
for annual simulations, or single snapshots? Does it also have thermal
capabilities ?

Joe Huang

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Joined: 2011-10-02
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Dear Dr. Huang:

George didn't have much time on CONTAM97R since then. Simultaneous solution is
possible but needs a little bit more new derivations, which should work better
for highly-coupled thermal-airflow problems without the need of relaxations.

The CFD in CONTAM 3.0 is relatively faster than normal CFD, which is compiled
together and shares memory with CONTAM, instead of externally coupled. It
currently doesn't do annual simulations and thermal equation coupling but the
turbulence model and the solver algorithm can be improved for annual studies, if
there is really a need to predict annual data using CFD instead of EnergyPlus
etc. By the way, CONTAM 3.0 also provides an option of wind pressure and
contaminant profile predictions on building envelopes using CFD, which is very
useful for multizone indoor simulations.

Best regards,
Leon Wang
____________________________________

Liangzhu (Leon) Wang, PhD
lwang at nist.gov; wang95 at purdue.edu
Building Environment Division
National Institute of Standards and Technology
(301) 975-6447
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8633
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8633
____________________________________

Quoting Joe Huang :

wang95 at purdue.edu's picture
Joined: 2011-10-02
Reputation: 0

Attached are my views on the eQUEST program. I tried to compare DOE2.1E and eQUEST using a one million square-foot high-rise mixed-use building with about 200 zones and several types of systems. Most of my eQUEST modeling time was spent in trying to get rid of the eQUEST decisions and assumptions made by the wizards so that it matched the DOE2.1E input (the actual project specifications) at every point. You have to start with the wizard because the best feature of eQUEST ? creating the building model, floor plans & zones by tracing AutoCAD drawings ? is not available in detailed edit.

Varkie Thomas's picture
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Joined: 2011-09-30
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