This article aims at a better understanding of how decisions are taken to improve energy performance of office buildings in warm climates and why energy tools are not popular among the architects. A survey was developed based on theory of designer's thinking and activities. Most of the survey consists of statements that can be weighted on a scale of 1 to 5, during specific stages of design: pre-design, sketch and detail phases.
Calculating the dynamic effects of surface overshadowing is a major part of most thermal analysis engines. It also represents a significant overhead in the analysis process yet, once a run is complete, this information is usually lost and must be entirely recalculated before the next run. However, detailed overshadowing for specific surfaces is valuable information to the designer.
The Australian Building Greenhouse Rating (ABGR) scheme is a performance-based rating for office buildings. While it was originally designed for existing buildings, its success in that sector has led to its rapid adoption as a performance standard for new buildings. As a result of this application, there has been an upsurge in the use of simulation as a predictor of absolute performance.
This paper describes a new data set appropriate for empirical validation of whole-building energy simulation software. The data has been created using artificial and natural climate configurations in the empirically characterized ETNA (Essais Thermiques en climat Naturel et Artificiel) test cells of an electric utility in France. This data set includes parametric variations based on the Building Energy Simulation Test and Diagnostic Method (BESTEST) comparative test methodology developed at a national laboratory in the United States
This paper discusses an experience of teaching building simulation to students in a small class of a Masters program in an architecture school. This was a course in assessing building performance using an hourly thermal simulation program. Students were required to use the program to assess the comfort and energy performance of the building they were designing.
This paper analyses the office demand connected to the use of different dynamic window and lighting control systems with the aim to optimize their usage aspects and characteristics from both visual and energy efficiency viewpoints. The approach is based on an improvement of the non-commercial hourly simulation program IENUS. Results are referred to a typical office located in Mediterranean climate
Significant R&D work has been on going in the development of integrated software environments that support building energy simulation. Software interfaces have been developed in both academic and industrial settings that support an integrated approach to the development of building energy simulation models.
An Excel macro-programming model of the thermal behaviour of open and enclosed swimming pools is run in seven different scenarios of increasing complexity. To secure a swimming season for the whole year, the use of a tent, a battery of collectors and auxiliary heat, to cope with winter, is advice. The tent can be removed or vented from November to March and must be tightly closed the rest of the year. An area of collectors equal to half the pool area will avoid excessive overheat and will assure the use of the pool in the morning during summer.
Building design and control applications can benefit from daylight simulation. Currently, most daylight simulation applications work with simplified sky luminance models.
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