IBPSA2005

For the past 50 years, a wide variety of building energy simulation programs have been developed, enhanced and are in use throughout the building energy community. This paper is an overview of a report which provides up-to-date comparison of the features and capabilities of twenty major building energy simulation programs.

An indoor thermal  simulation  was conducted  in a traditional house in a mountain area of Nepal for the purpose of thermal improvement in winter and saving firewood. The results are as follows:

In building studies dealing about energy efficiency and comfort, simulation software need relevant weather files with optimal time steps. Few tools generate extreme and mean values of simultaneous hourly data including correlation between the climatic parameters. This paper presents the C++ Runeole software based on typical weather sequences analysis.

Volatile organic compounds (VOC) are major indoor air pollutants. Physical models that have been developed to predict VOC source (emission) and sink behavior (sorption) of building materials, commonly adopt the conventional convection approach using third-kind boundary condition assuming quasi-steady convective mass transfer in fluid (air). In this study, conjugate mass transfer models were developed to investigate the validity and application limit of the assumption.

When designing district heating serving different buildings, an architectural engineer should suggest optimal operation policy of heating, based on social aspects and on minimizing costs for used energy and for investment in building heaters. In this paper by using HTB2 software, the energy simulation was carried out for two small Serbian residential buildings with different heating timing (starting and ending time of heating). These buildings had different types of partitions: one with thermal insulation layer and one with bricklayer.

This study aims to verify the advantages of district heating and cooling (DHC) systems in terms of energy efficiency. From the measurement data, the parameters that characterize the energy efficiency of a heating/cooling plant are identified for DHC and an individual building. A Simulation model that considers the difference in these parameters is developed. This model examines both the advantages and disadvantages of DHC systems and the effect of each parameter.

An 'active façade' responds to (and anticipates on) changing indoor and outdoor conditions. To assess the potential of such a façade for minimising energy consumption and improving indoor comfort, a simplified building simulation model has been developed, that combines the simplicity and understanding of easy to use programs with the flexibility and possibilities of advanced programs. To validate the program, it is applied to two ECN research facilities. The model appears to be able to adequately describe the thermal behaviour of both.

Traditional night cooling control strategies relies on the knowledge of the current situation – indoor and outdoor. The building is ventilated – passive or as free cooling via a mechanical ventilation system - with cool night air, hoping that the building  will warm up the  following day due to excess of free gains. In cool or moderate climates this often results in a thermal discomfort the next morning due to un- der-cooled constructions. As a consequence the sys- tem is often turned off.

This paper describes how a multi-zone air flow simulation program has been used for the evaluation of the performance of a hybrid ventilation system in a Swedish school. The idea was also to determine whether it is feasible for an HVAC consultant to apply a multi-zone air flow simulation program in a straight forward way. Before the analysis the tool was used to simulate the present state i.e.