English

The U.S. National Institute for Building Sciences (NIBS) started the development of the National Building Information Model Standard (NBIMS). Its goal is to define standard sets of data required to describe any given building in necessary detail so that any given AECO industry discipline application can find needed data at any point in the building lifecycle.

The paper describes the design of a Building Controls Virtual Test Bed (BCVTB), a simulation environment for the development of control algorithms and strategies for the major energy systems in buildings, HVAC, lighting, active facades and on-site generation. The BCVTB is based on the whole building energy simulation program EnergyPlus and includes both the pure simulation and the hardware-in-the-loop methods of implementing the controls.

This project investigated the feasibility of using existing software test cases to provide reliability scores for lighting simulation software. Estimation of lighting levels is a key element in commercial building design. And, many lighting programs claim to render light accurately. However, there is little published information on their accuracy. In thermal simulation, the IEA BESTEST (Judkoff et al), recently adopted by ASHRAE as Standard 140 (ASHRAE 140), certifies the acceptability of a thermal simulation code. (e.g.

EnergyPlus is a new building energy simulation program supported by American DOE. Based on the most popular features and capabilities of BLAST and DOE-2, it is rimarily a simulation engine without good interface. There’s an original interface called IDF editor supported by EnergyPlus, and users must input the simulation data with complex lists while using it. The boring inputting and all-English interface make the energy simulation so inconvenience that keep lots of new users away from the software although it has a precise and steady engine, especially the local users in China.

This paper describes a regression analysis performed over parameters related to two commercial building types and three weather files of Brazilian cities. A random sampling technique was applied to reduce the number of simulation runs needed in the parametric analysis. Equations to estimate the electric energy consumption as a function of building parameters were obtained.

This paper reports the design analysis process undertaken by the Georgia Tech Solar Decathlon 2007 team for an 800 sq.ft. solar-powered house. It presents the simulation process engaged over the entire design development cycle of the house (from conceptual to built), and demonstrates why, when, and how particular tools were deployed or developed on the basis of queries coming from diverse design team over several design iterations.

The tools that currently benchmark energy consumption beyond the building level are limited. This paper describes a framework utilizing simulation and spatial analysis tools to identify a credible set of campus energy performance indicators integrating both the building and site levels and taking into account the spatial arrangement surrounding each building. The research method propose a series of simulation experiments for a predefined group of building and site performance metrics classified under three categories: form, orientation and location.

In the preceding companion paper (Part I), a method with one sensor that could identify the indoor contaminant source location and strength in short time was presented. On the basis of further theoretical study, a method with two sensors is presented in this paper to identify contaminant source with higher accuracy. This paper demonstrates how to use the method with two sensors to find the location of contaminant source in a threedimensional room. In addition, the accuracy of two types of methods was compared.

In case contaminants are released in occupied rooms, it is necessary to determine the contaminant source location and strength rapidly so that prompt response measures can be taken to protect indoor occupants. This paper presents a new method with one sensor to identify the contaminant source location and strength. It completes the time-consuming computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations before the release event, and finds the source in real time during the event. In addition, an index called “correctness probability” for evaluating the accuracy of this method is proposed.

The indoor fire induced by gas leakages can cause a lot of property losses and fatalities. One of the  primary fire reasons is the explosion caused by the leaked gas concentrated within the explosive limits and an ignition source offered. In the paper, the characteristics of indoor gas leakages are disscussed and the theoretical models of the release rate and diffusion of gas are presented firstly.