For large scale commercial buildings, the inner heat gains acts in an uncertain way in time serial and space. Presently, fixed schedule is generally used to describe the inner heat gains in the state of arts HVAC system simulation which couldn’t reflect the uncertain characteristic of inner heat gains. Therefore the simulation is required to use a range rather than just a certain point as the simulation input of the inner heat gains.

 In the paper, Equivalent Slabs approach is presented to compute thermal bridges in building constructions properly and quickly. The heat transfer of thermal bridges is decomposed into the heat transfer process influenced by outdoor temperature, indoor temperature and adjacent room temperature separately. 2+n (n is the number of adjacent rooms related to the thermal bridge) Equivalent Slabs are obtained to replace a thermal bridge to solve its 2+n heat transfer processes.

The heat transfer characteristics in building window frame have significant three-dimensional characteristics, but window U-value model are often used in most building codes for thermal analyses to simplify the calculations. State model reduction techniques were used to develop loworder three-dimensional heat transfer model for window frame, which is efficient and accuracy. The method was validated for a envelope designs by comparing the with complete 3-D models.

In order to realize “design by simulation” in building design, this paper discusses the methodology of applying building thermal simulation in the building conceptual design stage. The conceptual design stage is divided into four sub-stages and the framework of design by simulation in the conceptual design stage has been built.

With the fast development of urbanization in China, the urban thermal environment has been worsen due to the more and more obvious heat island phenomena. Aartificial waterscape is regarded as one of the most effective methods to improve the outdoor climate. In this paper a fountain model is developped based on experiment results and Particle-Source-In Cell (PSI-CELL) model. Lagrangian approach is adopted to simulate the dynamics properties of droplets in the air while Eulerian approach is employed to solve the conservation equations of the air.

Long-wave radiation heat transfer is calculated using a geometrical factor the so-called view factor, which is normally estimated in a simplified way by building simulation programs, especially when there is no information in the literature due to the complexities to solve the double integral which defines the view factor between two surfaces. Analytical solutions are only available in the literature for a restricted number of simple configurations.

Even in relatively warm area in Japan, frost damage of roof tiles occurs. In this study, the influences of several factors on frost damage are considered from a thermal environmental point of view. Condensation on the external surfaces of roof tiles, which is caused by a temperature drop due to nocturnal radiation, is estimated as one of the most important factors to the frost damage. The frequency of condensation was calculated by a numerical analysis. The influence of the parameters, such as the inclination angle and the orientation of the roof, is investigated.

The properties of transparent plaster covering transparent insulation materials (TIM) were investigated using a whole building simulation program (ESP-r). The outer plaster was made from glass balls of different diameter, glued together with synthetic resin. The transmittance of the whole transparent covering layer (plaster + TIM) was estimated for different solar incident angles by laboratory measurements. The innovative character of the materials required refining of ESP-r’s optical database in order to take into account these new characteristics.

A new set of climatic data for different kinds of calculations has been compiled for various Swiss localities. This includes the generation of new design reference year data sets with hourly values for e.g. building simulations. The procedure conforms to a set of new European standards describing the algorithms. One key element in this is the processing of solar radiation information, especially for the separation into direct and diffuse components. The most advanced methodology was used.

Rainfall simulation is key problem for the evaluation of the energy saving potential of passive cooling by natural rainfall evaporation in humid and hot areas. This paper used a set of monthly, daily and hourly rainfall data in Guangzhou Area to identify the statistic feathers and distribution of the monthly, daily and hourly rainfall. A one-order AR model was found to be suitable for monthly rainfall estimation by AIC criterion judgment. Using a Gamma distribution model and monthly rainfall, daily rainfall was estimated by stochastically assignment.