Building performance simulation can support parametric explorations of design option spaces. Resources available for modelling and computing often require the reduction of the descriptive information of a design solution at the level of design-space model rather than at that of building model. To obtain that reduction, two design-space models of different scope (for example, one full-scope and simplified

The target of the paper is to study how to devise an efficient discrete-event model for the yearly energy simulation of buildings. Conventionally, software tools use time-driven schemes and many components must be computed at every sampling time-point. Event-driven simulation aims at lowering this burden, by calling only those components whose state is evolving quickly. The article explores a model

This study proposes a replicable approach for evaluating the impact of different weather data sources during the building refurbishment. Starting from a deep energy diagnosis, the numerical model is calibrated by using the weather data and the energy billings of the same year. Then, the performance gap is evaluated due to the adoption of conventional or new weather files defined with data recently

With the increasing integration of multiple energy carriers in district energy systems, an accurate simulation of the district energy demand becomes more crucial. To reduce the required computational power, the district energy demand is often quantified through a limited set of archetype buildings, representing the whole district. As the temporal behaviour is important to assess district energy systems

Overheating in buildings arising from climatic extreme heat events has been identified as a health concern to vulnerable occupants. However, there have been very limited studies to generate suitable weather data to evaluate by simulation the overheating risk and its effect on the comfort and health of occupants. This paper develops a methodology to identify reference summer weather years (RSWY) for

The virtual acoustics provide an important tool in the comprehension of the architectural evolution of a historical place, offering the possibility to consciously operate for its preservation. St. John’s Baptistery represents an outstanding example of medieval architecture, recognized as UNESCO World Heritage and popular for its huge reverberation. When compared to other similar central-symmetry buildings

Simulation tools for predicting building thermal performance and solar system performance must accurately calculate solar irradiance to surfaces of arbitrary orientation. This is imperative to correctly predict passive solar gains to buildings and to accurately estimate thermal and electrical production of solar collectors. In cold climates, where snow covers the ground for long periods of time, ground

A bottom-up building energy modelling at the urban scale based on Geographic Information System and semantic 3D city models can provide quantitative insights to tackle critical urban energy challenges. Nevertheless, incomplete information is a common obstacle to produce reliable modelling results. The residential building heating demand simulation performance gap caused by input uncertainties is discussed

Occupant behaviour (OB) is recognized as a leading source of uncertainty in building performance predictions. Neglecting the potential influence of uncertainties on building performance could result in erroneous decision-making during the design phase. Therefore, it is essential that uncertainties are appropriately considered within building performance simulation (BPS) models. As for OB, there are

Event-driven optimal control was recently developed for central air-conditioning systems to speed up the response of optimal control to irregular changes in the system optioning conditions. In a time-driven paradigm usually, the optimization is carried out with a constant frequency, however the event-driven optimal control triggers optimization actions by events, which will be essentially defined to

ABSTRACT The World Championship in Cybernetic Building Optimization (WCCBO) was held in 2019 to test participants’ ability to optimize buildings cybernetically. Office buildings with a total floor area of 10,000 m2 were built in cyberspace, one for each of the 33 participating teams. The cyber buildings were controlled by BACnet, and the participants competed to show their operational skills by tuning

A series of tests was conducted to characterize the indoor CO concentrations resulting from portable electric generators operating in the attached garage of a test house under various use and environmental conditions. An extensive model validation effort using the multizone airflow and indoor air quality (IAQ) model CONTAM was carried out using the data from seven tests with a generator operating in