building simulation

To achieve future-proof buildings, it is crucial to design buildings and systems that can withstand to shocks (like heat waves and power outages) and reduce the impact of shocks on thermal comfort in a building. This is known as resilience to overheating.

An accurate temperature gradient calculation is essential for displacement ventilation (DV) system design, since it directly relates to the calculation of the required supply air flow rate. Inaccurate temperature prediction can cause the poor thermal comfort and w sizing of the ventilation and cooling systems.

Buildings account for approximately 40 % of energy use in the European Union, as well as in the United States. In light of the European Energy performance of buildings directive, efforts are underway to reduce this energy use by targeting zero or nearly zero energy buildings. In such low energy buildings in cold climates, ventilation to ensure suitable indoor air quality is responsible for half or more of their energy use. The use of heat recovery and demand-controlled ventilation are potential solutions to reduce ventilation-related energy consumption.

The interest in phase change materials (PCMs) as a solution for thermal energy storage has been growing for the last decades. It is clear that PCMs are promising for reducing the summer heat peaks without increasing the energy demand for cooling. A new modular, reversible, lightweight retrofitting system was developed and integrated in a real size experimental test cell.

In the present paper the impact of natural cross-ventilation on thermal comfort levels in sustainable residential buildings is evaluated. A sustainable dwelling is designed in Crete and various scenarios of different combinations of open windows and doors in the ground floor, the first floor and between the floors are tested to determine the final scenarios with the best possible airflow movement.

Nowadays, important efforts are deployed to reduce energy consumption in the field of residential buildings. Concerning new constructions, low-energy consumption buildings such as “passive” houses constitute a suitable solution to decrease the environmental impacts.In this kind of building, air tightness is improved and heating needs are reduced compared to traditional constructions. In order to ensure a good indoor air quality, controlled mechanical ventilation is required.

This paper presents an ideal and worst case scenario approach for occupancy modelling in early design stages which can be used in building simulation. It defines the range of impact that occupant behaviour can have on comfort and energy performance in buildings, and can thus contribute to the decision making of architectural projects in early design stages.  

Advanced control and operation of HVAC systems in buildings is one of the most promising energy efficient technologies. However, there is still significant energy saving potential in these systems. Energy savings can come from correcting deficiencies through building commissioning. This paper focuses on deficiencies in the controls of a variable air volume (VAV) air handling unit (AHU) system. This paper demonstrates how DeST, a building simulation tool, is used to detect faults and to optimize set points in VAV AHU system controls.

This paper provides an overview of a new method for modelling the total solar energy transmittance. It is implemented in the ESP-r building simulation program to model complex façades such as double glazed façades with external, internal or integrated shading devices. This new model has been validated and tested for several cases.

Residential Building Energy Efficiency (RBEE) becomes more important in recent years in China. From 1986, Chinese government has carried out a series of codes of RBEE, but for kinds of reasons, the effect is not perfect enough. One important reason is In order to promote the development of RBEE, an energy labeling system was presented in this paper. In this labeling system, the real estate company was requested to label the energy consumption data of the houses to be sold on the sales documents, and show this data to the consumers.