English

In conducting and teaching Building Simulation, we often find two main disadvantages of conventional models: inconsistency of simulation results obtained by different users of the same model, and long machine times required for annual simulations of relatively simple buildings. In searching for better simulation methods, we decided to depart from the conventional method and to introduce machine learning into mathematical modelling of buildings. This resulted with a new model, based on learning of building energy properties from monitored data.

The CLIM 2000 software proposes a host architecture for dynamic, modular building energy modelling. CLIM 2000 provides a library of basic models, which in particular allows simulation of hydraulic heating networks. Unlike those oriented towards simulation of the building envelope, these models pose specific resolution problems. Owing to the modelling adopted, the elements making up the hydraulic networks require knowledge of the topology of the heating circuit.

Changing working processes not only in manufacturing and assembly but also in office work require advanced buildings which allow a maximum of flexibility towards building structure and all its services (HVAC, telecommunications etc.). To gether with the growing importance of shared tenant services in intelligent buildings, theattempt to reach low-energy consuming buildings despite of their required flexibility in supplying a good infrastructure leads to a growing importance of "building performance".

The high thermal insulation of housing construction has been spreading all over Japan, for the improvement of indoor environment and the efficiency of energy consumption. From the view point of global warming, it is acknowledged that the high thermal insulation reduces CO2 emission in the heating and cooling phase, but it increases CO2 emission at construction phase since the amount of materials for thermal insulation increases.

Currently used design tools for kitchen design are often complicated, have poor interfaces and limited capabilities to exchange data between different applications. No integrated kitchen design environment is available although kitchen design requires the expertise of many different specialists and the decisions of various designers strongly affect each other. The complex design, build, maintain and retrofit process has been mapped in order to provide a logical structure and flow for the kitchen design system.

This paper reports on two case studies that explore the current use of computational tools in building design scenarios. Goal of the project is to gain insight into the role of tools in the design process and to investigate and capture the designer’s viewpoint concerning building simulation. This viewpoint is essential for a successful application of simulation in the design process, but might differ from the viewpoint of the developer of simulation  tools.

Eight  mechanically  ventilated  flow  patterns  have been conducted in a test chamber. The air age in test chamber is measured with tracer gas technique. A CFD program named as STACH-3 is developed with the transport equation of air age in it. The predicted air age with STACH-3 is compared with the experimental results. It is shown that the computed air age agrees well with the experimental results except a few points. The relationship between flow pattern and air age distribution for the test chamber is analyzed  with  not  only the predicted  but  also the experimental results.

This  paper   describes   the   methodology  and   the implementation of DEST, which is a simulation software developed to help the designer during design process. For each design phase, DEST provides corresponding method and program. Some new ideas about using simulation in design are introduced in the paper, with some examples that come from real projects. It is believed that the HVAC design should shift from single-point-design to whole process design in the new century. To achieve this goal, simulation plays an important role.

For improving feedback about thermal simulation results from engineers to architects, it is desirable to present them in the three-dimensional context of the building. In this paper, we present a system for improved thermal simulation and interactive 3D visualisation of the results. We describe extensions of the physically-based  rendering  system GENESIS-2 towards