The advantages of building simulation for building design engineers

Building dynamic simulation has been available to building design engineers for some time. However steady state methods are still being used and these methods do not provide the information required for making informed decisions on the best design options. An existing high specification building designed using steady state methods is used to compare the HVAC plant sizes installed to the plant sizes that would have been required if building simulation methods had been used. The value of the peak loads and their time of occurrence found from dynamic simulation are also compared to the steady state loads. Analysis of  the results shows the inadequacies in the steady state methods. This information will show the advantages of using building   simulation   to    those   building    design engineers that are not already using it.