Complex building performance analysis in early stages of design: a solution based on differential modeling, homology-based mapping, and generative design agents

Computational performance-based building design support faces a conflict. It is important to provide building performance feed back to the designer as early as possible in the design process. But many aspects of building performance are significantly affected by the design of the building’s technical systems, which are typically configured in detail only in the later stages of design.

COMIS V3.1 simulation environment for multizone air flow and pollutant transport modelling

COMIS simulates multizone airflow and pollutant transport. It has been developed in an international context at LBNL and within IEA Annex 23. At the end of Annex 23, EMPA took over the coordination of further developments, and – together with CSTB – the maintenance of COMIS. In January 2001, the "COMIS v3.1 with IISiBat v2.4" package was released, and is available now from CSTB.

ColSim: a new simultaion environment for complex system analysis and controllers

The paper describes the main features of the new simulation environment ColSim [15] and a special application for investigating ventilation strategies in buildings. ColSim was developed with the intention of simulating and testing complex control strategies in different HVAC and thermal solar systems, coupled to a building model. It is based on a modular structure and a modified Euler algorithm was chosen for the numerical integration of the nonlinear differential equations.

CODYBA: a design tool for buildings performance simulation

CODYBA is a software addressed to designers, teachers and research organisms. This software determines the energetic fluxes of a building zone. The basic data are the zones geometry and constitution. The main parameters are the climatic conditions, the internal loads and the heating and air conditioning powers, as well as their regulation mode.

Climate stability in museums

In addition to the fact that the serviceability of building constructions used as exhibition halls has to be ensured, the climate stability of the whole structure has to be increased. Exemplary building physical calculations with transient boundary conditions (simulations) were set off by the aim to modernize the “ Herzog-Anton-Ulrich-Museum” in Brunswick.

CFD and zonal approaches: comparison and validation

This paper deals with comparison between the CFD method and the zonal one, and also model experimental validation. The zonal method consists of a dwelling decomposition in several isothermal air zones, in contact with walls. 

This work comprises two parts :

Calculation of actual consumption for single for family houses

This paper addresses the utility and the difficulties to predict the actual energy consumption of existing buildings, that can be useful to calculate true energy conservation potential taking into account the real usage of the building. True indoor temperature is of particular importance but also the availability of casual and solar gains. A sensitivity analysis on the set of behavioural parameters shows that the casual gains are highly dependent on the number of occupants at home and the lighting scenario, which requires to collect information about the occupants way of life.

Buildings air-flow simulations: automatically-generated zonal models

We present an advanced formulation of zonal models for calculating indoor air temperature and flow distributions in buildings. Our modeling is based on  modularity:

Building thermal performance analysis by using Matlab/Simulink

This paper is focused on a mathematical model applied to both building thermal analysis and control systems design. A lumped approach is used to model the room air temperature and a multi-layer model for the building envelope. The capacitance model allows to study the transient analysis of room air temperature when it is submitted to sinusoidal variation of external air temperature, representing a case study for a cold day in the south Brazil. To evaluate the building performance with thermal parameters, we use MATLAB/SIMULINK.

Building simulation: some swiss experiences

This paper gives an overview about the use of building simulation in Switzerland. It focuses 4 different areas:

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