Building performance simulation

Summary

Building performance simulation (BPS) is the replication of aspects of building performance using a computer-based, mathematical model created on the basis of fundamental physical principles and sound engineering practice. The objective of building performance simulation is the quantification of aspects of building performance which are relevant to the design, construction, operation and control of buildings. Building performance simulation has various sub-domains; most prominent are thermal simulation, lighting simulation, acoustical simulation and air flow simulation. Most building performance simulation is based on the use of bespoke simulation software. Building performance simulation itself is a field within the wider realm of scientific computing. Introduction From a physical point of view, a building is a very complex system, influenced by a wide range of parameters. A simulation model is an abstraction of the real building which allows to consider the influences on

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_performance_simulation

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John Fernandez

LESO-PB, EPFL2015

Toward Assessing the Sensitivity of Buildings to Changes in Climate

Sönke Frederik Horn

A building is designed for one set of typical climatic conditions. In the context of expected climate change, substantial numbers of existing and new buildings are expected to survive long enough to experience perceptible shifts in climate ‘normals’ (averages). This is problematic for predicting building performance, largely because the exact nature of climate change is hard to predict with certainty. Thus an optimal design is not only tuned to the original design conditions, but is also robust to changes in climatic conditions in the sense of a low sensitivity of its performance. To predict a building’s response to changes in typical weather, two inputs are required: weather data representing this change, and suitable metrics to compare building performance across different climate normals. This report presents initial work on a proposed method for assessing the sensitivity of new or existing buildings to climate change. This method begins with a selection of weather files to represent climate change, then quantifies a building’s passive performance in those climates using an enthalpy-based metric, and ends with a graphical analysis of the performance of the building in different climates to assess its robustness. In this report, we propose an objective performance metric based on the extent to which a building creates indoor conditions passively, i.e. without auxiliary systems. Initial work suggests that the performance assessment carried out here is reproducible and applicable for indoor environment design and evaluation in different ranges of climate change. This approach enables a comparison of building performance without the bias introduced by inherent differences in climatic conditions.

2013

In a time when governments are pursuing increasingly ambitious energy efficiency goals, building energy simulation at the urban scale, combined with the high availability of physical data, can help in performing this task. The purpose of this study is to describe the methodology used to create a geometrical 3D and physical model for the city of Geneva, and to analyze the energy-saving potential of several refurbishment measures, including the installation of more solar PV panels, for different climatic scenarios. Different sources of data are used to build a PostgreSQL database with the physical and geometrical characteristics of the buildings. The virtual models are simulated with CitySim, a program that estimates the energy demand for heating, cooling, and lighting of every building on an hourly basis. The models include, but are not limited to, the shadowing effect among the buildings, the passive solar gains through glazing, the internal gains due to occupants’ activities, the solar reflectance and infrared emissivity of the surfaces, and the materials that provide the buildings with insulation from the outdoors. This research will also provide some results that can be used by the municipal authorities of Geneva as a reference to quantify the decrease of the energy demand that they can expect to achieve in the next years.

2016