IBPSA1991

Courseware is educational software, designed to create an instructional environment, for the purpose of facilitating learning. Courseware is being developed to support training in a wide range of engineering disciplines, including Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning (HVAC) design. It is anticipated that courseware will be used much more, to support current training practices in HVAC design, in order to make training more effective, efficient, and accessible. Current practices in courseware design indicate very few courseware products are designed using formal methods.

The approach adopted by the Gaz de France Research Center for the modelling-simulation of building performance separates as far as possible modelling from simulation. Emphasis is placed on modelling and its validation. In the proposed approach, a model library in the form of PROFORMA forms is set up. Its aim is to provide researchers with a set of models characterized, in particular, by their state of validation. The engineer selects the models and the simulation tool he needs in order to obtain the numerical results corresponding to the objectives of his study.

This paper describes an operating hourly weather simulation model which is utilized to drive building energy simulation and equipment design software. The model contains both deterministic and probabilistic portions that perform sun angle calculations, sky opacity, dry-bulb temperatures, dewpoint temperatures, wind speed, and barometric pressures. Sample summary statistics have been shown to give good agreement with means, extremes, and distributions of real weather data records. A sample energy analysis is also included to illustrate the model's flexibility for different applications.

This paper presents a new technique for the thermal systems modelling. This method, based on the structural modularity of a thermal system such as a building belongs to the modal methods family. It especially allows to obtain accurate enough reduced thermal models of large system. In this paper, the main advantages of this method are specified (recurrent, ...). Its funtamentals are given and the results are illustrated by two examples (three layers wall and bizone building).

The presentation of most HVAC simulation programs are out of date and batch processing type. Their use is complex and often requires a good data processing knowledge. Moreover, the data entry is usually long and the search for conceiving or typing mistakes is not easy. This present work shows how to update the simulation environment and how to satisfy the modem work station requirements by using a graphical manmachine interface.

As part of visualization of interior luminous environment in daylighting a programme (NATUREL) has been developed at CSTB. It allows to take into account complex shapes of building, furniture and apertures. These, located on facade and/or on roofing, are characterized with various parameters : area, thickness of wall (roof), luminous transmission, outdoor surroundings ... All surfaces (indoor and outdoor) of the scene are described in term of plane facets and are supposed to have perfectly diffuse reflection, which is advised for interior lighting. The software includes three main steps.