In 1998, MoD commissioned ANSYS CFX to develop a numerical procedure, based on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), aimed at providing a practical tool which can be integrated into design processes in order to optimise lowpressure fine water spray fire suppression systems. The work, which employs the CFX software, included a sensitivity study which investigated the influence of a number of parameters and compared the predictions with an experiment conducted by the Loss Prevention Council (LPC). This paper outlines parts of that work. Preliminary results were encouraging.
When making design decisions, which can impact on building capital cost and performance, the design team has to be confident that the simulation tool is generating reliable output. Confidence can be gained via several mechanisms. In all cases data quality is of prime importance. Recognising the quality of data, or the lack of quality, and how this impacts on the predictions of the simulation tool is crucial to making informed design decisions.
Certain energy-related building standards make use of simple numeric indicators to describe a building's geometric compactness. Typically, such indicators make use of the relation between the volume of a built form and its surface area. The indicators are then used along with information on the thermal transmittance of the building enclosure elements to evaluate the degree to which a building design meets the relevant thermal insulation criteria.
A simple approach for calculation of the electrical yield from building integrated PV (photovoltaic) systems has been implemented in BSim2002 - a program package for thermal simulation of energy and indoor climate conditions in buildings. The module – SimPv - takes advantage of the building model geometry and solar distribution routines of BSim to simulate solar irradiation on a face fitted with PV. The routines also handle shades from local and distant obstacles. The electric yield is calculated in SimPv from a very limited number of data on the PV system.
This paper describes a relatively simple software tool that has been developed to perform annual hour-by hour energy simulation of a building. It extends earlier work performed for one-zone buildings (Bernier and Randriamiarinjatovo, 2001) to buildings that can be represented by five thermally similar zones. The simulation program has been built using a general equation solver (Klein and Alvarado, 2002). As implied by the title of this paper, the solver is easy to use both for the software developer and the user.
This paper deals with neural networks modelling of HVAC systems. In order to increase the neural networks performances, a method based on sensitivity analysis is applied. The same technique is also used to compute the relevance of each input. To avoid the prediction errors in dry coil conditions, a metamodel for each capacity is derived from the neural networks.
This paper presents the concept of a tool adapted to zonal models and devoted to the simulation of thermal dynamic phenomena in buildings. The aim of this tool is the automatic generation of zonal models requiring the minimum user's expertise. The proposed tool uses a database to deduce the behavior of flows and thermal transfers.
Advanced packages for building energy analysis require simplified methods to reduce the computational time in assessing the indoor visual environment. The paper develops and compares some simplified calculation procedures for a quick assessment of the minimum indoor natural illuminance on the working plane in office spaces when external shadings and light control systems are used.
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