Strategies for coupling energy simulation and computacional fluid dynamics programs

Energy  simulation  (ES)  and  computational  fluid dynamics (CFD) can play important roles in building design by providing complementary information about the buildings’ environmental performance. However, separate applications of ES and CFD are usually unable to give an accurate prediction of building performance due to the assumptions involved in the separate calculations. Integration of ES and CFD eliminates many of these assumptions since the information provided by the models is complementary. Several different approaches to integrating ES and CFD are described. In order to bridge the discontinuities of time-scale, spatial resolution and computing speed between ES and CFD programs, a staged coupling strategy for different problems is proposed.  The paper illustrates a typical dynamic coupling process by means of an example  implemented  using  the  EnergyPlus  and MIT-CFD programs.