IBPSA2011

A methodology is presented that entails three ways to determine the heat losses of a dwelling in the heating season, each using a different set of data. The first method gives an indication of the theoretical ‘energetic’ quality of a dwelling, the second and third provide an indication of the actual ‘energetic’ quality of the dwelling. The third method includes effects of user behaviour. The methodology was applied to the private dwellings of (former) colleagues.

Nowadays, important efforts are deployed to reduce our current residential building consumption. The most common retrofit option concerns the air tightness and the thermal insulation improvement. However, this latter retrofit option could decrease the air indoor quality because of a reduction of air infiltration flow rate. Installation of an air-to-air heat recovery system allows for an efficient combination between consumption reduction due to the air tightness improvement and acceptable air indoor quality.

A combined simulation of the building envelope and the plant equipment is more realistic than simulating both separately and has the advantage that the modeler can use one software environment instead of multiple software environments. Tools that solve the coupled heat and moisture transfer for building components already exist. In this paper a software is introduced that uses the detailed simulation models of different building components (e.g., walls and windows) to generate a whole building simulation model. Furthermore, the extension of this software with HVAC models is described.

At present, for energy conservation, conscious utilization of natural ventilation is encouraged. However, the relationship between heat discharge through natural ventilation and heat loads has not been clarified yet. Accordingly, in this study, the effect of heat discharge through natural ventilation on indoor environments and heat removal structure is examined using a simulation model that can estimate the occupant thermal control behaviour and the characteristics of air conditioners.

The sensitivity to time resolution of boundary conditions is studied for dynamic integrated simulation of thermal and electrical networks of a net zero energy residential neighborhood.

To evaluate the requirements for passive school buildings, simplified calculation methods based on EN ISO 13790 are used. For these simplified calculations a fixed indoor temperature is used regardless the building properties, the climatic data or the building use data.  Considering the large impact of this temperature on the heating demand, an accurate estimation is important to obtain representative results. This paper analyses the accuracy of the fixed indoor temperature.

One trend in whole building simulation is the incorporation of hygric interaction of room and enclosure. This allows besides a more detailed comfort assessment the optimization of building components to avoid moisture related damage or failure. Still, the main interest in the building design and optimization phase is the energy use combined with the occupants comfort. Several existing standards and guidelines allow the validation of building energy simulation tools, like ASHRAE 140 (ANSI/ASHRAE 140-2007 2007) or VDI 6020 (VDI Richtline 6020 2001).

For the surface temperature of clothing, body surface temperature, and detailed temperatures and heat flow phenomena of soles contacting the floor, results of measurement experiments using human subjects were compared with results of simulations conducted by CFD using a thermal mannequin. 

This study aims to conduct an Integrated Building Design process (IBD), collaborating a Building Information Modeling (BIM) application with a Building Energy Simulation tool (BES) to perform energy analysis, and improving the building energy performance of a Generalizable Building Design (GBD), an universal application on health care facilities design in Thailand, to state recommendations and guidelines of the BIM-BES integration for architects. A baseline model is created using a BIM system, exported by means of gbXML into a BES tool.

This paper proposes to study the role and the user in the operation of the building and its impact on energy performance of buildings.  Some comparisons of the energy consumption and production of the buildings were calculated during the design stage are made against the measured data of the consumption and production of the buildings when they are being utilized.