English

Internal   melt   ice-on-coil   tank   with   built-in horizontal tubes is a kind of ice tank used widely. Its discharge process is effected greatly by density different between ice and water. The existing models developed for internal melt ice-on-coil tank are concentric cylinder models which are applicable to tank with built-in vertical tube or to case when all water in tank is frozen, but is not applicable to describing the effect of density difference between ice and water on discharge.

An experimental apparatus (in-situ thermal test unit) and an analysis method have been developed for evaluating the thermal resistance of the building envelope on site. This system estimates the thermal resistance of a wall by heating the outside wall surface and measuring the surface heat fluxes and temperatures on both sides of the wall. The heating panel is attached to the outside surface to avoid the effect of outside weather and to keep the surface temperature constant. The inevitable problem of this kind of testing method is, however, the error caused by the lateral heat loss.

A practical way to estimate the accuracy of sound field analysis by the finite element method in building environments is presented here. The error characteristics curves of several acoustic finite elements are proposed first, then a guideline is given for the 27-node acoustic finite element, developed by the authors, to be employed in the analysis where high accuracy is required. With the issue, sound fields in a reverberation room (179m3) with several absorbent conditions are analyzed by the method to be compared with the measured values, which showed fair agreement.

This communication presents a tool, m2m&Roofsol, which has been developed in the framework of a European project, ROOFSOL, dedicated to the study of passive cooling by roof components. This tool is based on an existing simulation tool, m2m, which allows detailed analysis and simulation of the thermal dynamic behaviour of large building envelopes, and model size reduction techniques[2][3]. Two main problems have been solved in this software extension.

It is necessary to predict the load of the following day and hours to establish optimal thermal storage. In this paper, three kinds of load prediction models, the Kalman filter, GMDH and neural network are used and characteristics and usability of each method were compared. It has been shown that proper selection of input variables, method of preprocessing the meas- urement data and the form of prediction equation gave a large influence on the prediction accuracy, and that each of them could predict the cooling load for thermal storage operation with sufficient accuracy.

This paper describes an effort to link the COMIS 3.0 multi-zone airflow model with the EnergyPlus building energy simulation program. COMIS 3.0 is a network-based multi-zone airflow model developed by a multinational team in the framework of International Energy Agency’s Annex 23 for simulating airflows through the building fabric due to infiltration or natural ventilation, and from zone to zone, as well as the interactions of the HVAC system, ducts, and exhaust hoods and fans.

In conducting and teaching Building Simulation, we often find two main disadvantages of conventional models: inconsistency of simulation results obtained by different users of the same model, and long machine times required for annual simulations of relatively simple buildings. In searching for better simulation methods, we decided to depart from the conventional method and to introduce machine learning into mathematical modelling of buildings. This resulted with a new model, based on learning of building energy properties from monitored data.

The CLIM 2000 software proposes a host architecture for dynamic, modular building energy modelling. CLIM 2000 provides a library of basic models, which in particular allows simulation of hydraulic heating networks. Unlike those oriented towards simulation of the building envelope, these models pose specific resolution problems. Owing to the modelling adopted, the elements making up the hydraulic networks require knowledge of the topology of the heating circuit.

Changing working processes not only in manufacturing and assembly but also in office work require advanced buildings which allow a maximum of flexibility towards building structure and all its services (HVAC, telecommunications etc.). To gether with the growing importance of shared tenant services in intelligent buildings, theattempt to reach low-energy consuming buildings despite of their required flexibility in supplying a good infrastructure leads to a growing importance of "building performance".

The high thermal insulation of housing construction has been spreading all over Japan, for the improvement of indoor environment and the efficiency of energy consumption. From the view point of global warming, it is acknowledged that the high thermal insulation reduces CO2 emission in the heating and cooling phase, but it increases CO2 emission at construction phase since the amount of materials for thermal insulation increases.