Conference Paper

Proceedings of Building Simulation 2019: 16th Conference of IBPSA

Explicit Representations of Common Artefacts in Simulation

Jon William Hand
University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26868/25222708.2019.210525
Abstract: Buildings are populated with artefacts which exhibit complex response characteristics to the surrounding environment. Computers, copy machines, ovens and electric storage heaters have sometimes-substantial temporal shifts between their inputs and the casual gains they introduce into rooms. Are these thermophysical complexities simply noise that can be ignored or can they have a bigger part to play in our virtual environments? Abstract representations can make it difficult for whole building numerical tools to match experimental measurements or short term detailed observations. There are many possible approaches to reducing descriptive and thermophysical abstraction. This paper explores the implications of treating sub-room scale artefacts as one or more explicit thermal zones and use the solution techniques applied to thermal zones to capture these elusive response characteristics. The paper also explores the influence of sub-room scale artefacts on the rooms and occupants. The paper also explores whether this makes a noticeable difference to the patterns of performance recorded within the built environment and the computing resource implications of such an approach.
Keywords: explicit representations, sub-room-scale artefacts, performance information
Pages: 4204 - 4212
Paper: