IBPSA2013

Starting from an entry in the recent German Energy Plus Renovation competition (EPA --- EnergyPlus im Altbau 2012), the paper presents the design tools used to assess the project's energy consumption at competition stage.

Thermal bridging is a problem that arises from using a thermosyphon. It is used as a passive part of the building envelope in south facing walls. A solution is proposed and investigated in this paper. SolidWorks 2011 is used to simulate the thermal performance of the thermosyphon. A finite element analysis, FEA, (4 points Jacobian) is employed to measure the temperature and heat flux at different surfaces of the thermosyphon. Simulation results showed that the backward maximum heat flux reduces 76 times when a Teflon piece is introduced.

This paper presents a simple all-weather sky radiance model (diffuse component). The model development was motivated by the intention to find a balance between the model's simplicity and ease of use on the one side and predictive capability on the other side. To develop the model, measured data collected at the microclimatic monitoring station of our institute (the Department of Building Physics and Building Ecology of the Vienna University of Technology) was deployed. To formulate the model, a formalism based on the concept of irradiance coefficient was used.

In the Swiss research project OptiControl (www.opticontrol.ethz.ch), new predictive building control strategies are developed and applied to a fully occupied, well instrumented demonstrator building. Here we report on the development and validation of the EnergyPlus building energy performance simulation model used in the project.