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Proceedings of BauSim Conference 2010: 3rd Conference of IBPSA-Germany and Austria

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Visualisation of thermodynamics and energy performance for complex building and HVAC system simulation

Stephan Ledinger, Marcus Jones

Abstract: Complex building and HVAC system simulation is usually carried out incrementally. The process of generating the results of interest from a simulation can be defined by the cycle in figure 1. Slowly adding new information to the already working model and checking whether these additions work as intended is important. During this procedure and for the final generation of results, the modeller wants to check the new results for plausibility and correctness as quickly as possible before proceeding to the next adaptation. The use of automation reduces the effort of visualising the new results. This allows the modeller to concentrate on the analysis and modeling phase and hence speed up the work flow. During the energy modelling and analysis of a complex buildings, new methods for visualising system and building energy performance were developed and employed to manage the complexity of the system. A key feature of the improved methods was the standardisation of simulation results (outputs) and the automation of post-processing these results. Automation should be applicable for not only one specific but as many building and system simulation tools as possible. This requires the standardisation conventions for naming and structuring the simulations results to be intuitive and clear. Additionally, the automation concept includes the possibility to predefine typical forms of diagrams, figures, charts, etc., and dynamically link them to the new simulation results after each simulation. This paper provides an overview of the new prospects for building and system simulation, emerging out of this visualisation concept. The possible forms of displaying energy performance of a building and its HVAC system are automatically generated; • time series of various variables like temperatures, flow rates, control signals, capacities, etc. • three dimensional bar charts for energy balances systems over definable periods, • animated psychrometric charts, showing all relevant states of a system for a definable time frame • system overview diagrams that include dynamically linked state point information for an instant in time The presented concept also has the intention to be applicable to other sources such as monitoring data. This allows, in addition to the streamlined simulation process, a fast validation of the modelled system.
Pages: 356 - 360
Paper:
bausim2010_356