This paper argues that analytical approaches (i.e., simulation) and inductive learning methods (i.e., neural networks) can cooperate to facilitate a daylight responsive lighting control strategy.

New calculation procedures for calculating conduction heat transfer for foundations are described. These procedures are first validated and then implemented within EnergyPlus source code (beta version 5.0). Selected results of the implementation are presented for a 3-zone low -rise building. The results indicated that the developed foundation heat transfer module accounts better than existing EnergyPlus module for the ground mass and its effects on reducing the hourly and seasonal fluctuations of slab surface temperatures.

The lack of widespread use of building environmental design decision support tools in architecture appears to be because the tools are often too simplistic. Designers find it difficult to trust the output of a tool that apparently trivialises the design issues. Even, regular users of simulation have a difficult time developing procedures to ensure that they can trust the output of the simulation. A web site has been developed which addresses this need directly. This paper describes the design principles on which the web site is based.

The paper describes new improvements in SOLENE, a set of numerical models for the simulation of natural light in both the urban morphologies and the indoor architectural spaces which is developed in our laboratory. This tool takes into account the direct solar and the diffuse sky luminous energies for the evaluation of luminance, that can be computed on the real surfaces of the environment (ground, walls), or on a false working plane. The tool allows the computation of some classical parameters (daylight factor), but makes it possible to get other informative descriptors.

This work wants to provide the planners with a database of the typical mediterranean building structures. This provides a set of coefficients of the transfer functions which describe exactly the thermal behaviour of the structure, the time lag and the attenuation of the heat flux. For each structure is individualised the best number of coefficients and roots to assure the reliability of the thermal simulation.

The aim of this work is to present a computer application that was developed to be a user-friendly interface that simplifies the manipulation of weather data files. The computer code is capable of creating and editing .EPW (EnergyPlus) and .TMY2 (Typical Meteorological Year II) weather files and making some translation between the two formats. It is part of an academic project that comprises the development of a series of applications, which together will consist of a complete interface for illumination/Thermal Comfort simulations using the EnergyPlus engine.

There  are  two  kind  of  supply  fan  rotation  speed control methods, one is the static pressure control method, the other is the float pressure control method. Simulation shows that they have different working point along the whole year. The supply air fan controlled with float pressure control  method need low rotation speed and works on high efficiency, so the float pressure control method need only 30% fan operation energy of the static pressure control  method.  The  layout  of  the  air  duct  may influence the fan control method.

This  paper  referrer  to  the  existence  of  the variety modes and the 'chaos' in building ventilation system, and provides some instances of such varieties and the chaos in forced ceiling chamber smoke exhaust system in building fire. The numerical  calculations are executed by the Newton-Raphson method for the ventilation network models. The ventilation variety up to five modes and the chaos characteristics are obtained  as  the natural result of the non-linear system and illustrated in figures and maps.

Up to now, within the framework of validation of the global building energy simulation software programme CLIM2000, we have not focused on analytical verification. Indeed, the scientific literature is not verbose on this subject due to the fact that only few thermal problems have analytical solutions. In the framework of International Energy Agency (IEA) Solar Heating And Cooling (SHAC) Task 22 (Building Energy Analysis Tools), a working document was established identifying and summarising analytical tests as verification and debugging tests for building energy analysis simulations.

This paper presents the Umidus program which has been developed to model coupled heat and moisture transfer within porous media, in order to analyze higrothemal performance of building  elements when subjected to any kind of climate conditions. Both diffusion and capillary regimes are taken into account, that is the transfer of water in the vapor and liquid phases through the material can be analyzed. The model predicts moisture and temperature profiles within multi-layer walls and low-slope roofs for any time step and calculates heat and mass transfer.