This study presents a new integration of air-source heat pumps, solar collectors, and phase change material tanks regarding the dynamics of outdoor swimming pools, and investigates its application in outdoor swimming pools to extend their availability in the winter in subtropical climates. Since multiple heat sources are used, two issues in the development are addressed: (1) main component sizing and

Power consumption in buildings show nonlinear behaviours that linear models cannot capture, whereas recurrent neural networks (RNNs) can. This ability makes RNNs attractive alternatives for the model-predictive control (MPC) of buildings. However, RNNs are nonlinear and non-smooth functions which makes their use challenging in optimization problems. Therefore, this work systematically investigates

To improve the prediction of the building’s energy performance, it has become necessary to evaluate their interactions with the urban microclimate. This study aims to propose an integrated model in the TRNSYS software with a simplified approach to assess building energy demand, including microclimate interactions on buildings. This model is based on thermoradiative and aeraulic modelling by considering

In this paper, the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) method and the discrete empirical interpolation method (DEIM) are combined to construct a reduced-order model for a cost-optimal simulation of heat and moisture transfer in building materials. The POD-DEIM performance is assessed via two applications: a relatively simple case study on nonlinear heat conduction and a more complex case study on

The present study aims to examine the effects of medical staff’s turning movements on the number of particles falling onto the patient. A simplified computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of the operating room was developed and validated based on the published data. An RNG k-ε turbulence model based on the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations was used to simulate the airflow, while a

Buildings energy efficiency is highly dependent on occupants’ energy and environmental lifestyle. In this view, this work aims at identifying the potential benefits of human-based energy retrofit strategies, namely human behaviour triggering actions and associated energy awareness, through large-scale surveys and calibrated building dynamic simulation. In detail, a questionnaire is submitted to office

Office lighting installations often inefficiently expend energy illuminating space that is unoccupied and/or already receiving adequate daylight. Illuminance and occupancy sensors can enable substantial energy savings by deploying electric lighting only in proximity to occupants, and at levels required to supplement available daylight. Savings vary based on sensor granularity, daylight availability

Annual luminance maps provide meaningful evaluations for occupants’ visual comfort and perception. This paper presents a novel data-driven approach for predicting annual luminance maps from a limited number of point-in-time high-dynamic-range imagery by utilizing a deep neural network. A sensitivity analysis is performed to develop guidelines for determining the minimum and optimum data collection

This paper analyses structural and acoustic performance interactions of a building covered with a cable net and membrane roof following a multiphysics approach. The problem has three different variables: the roof time-depending deformed shape under wind action (duration 1800 s), the extremely variable position of a singer on the stage (30 s speaker recorded movements were expanded through a 6th order

In the UK, heating systems are the most prominent contributor to residential energy demand, with about 80% of the share. Their representation has thus been at the core of all UK-focussed Housing Stock Energy Models (HSEMs). However, these HSEMs estimate heating demand based on monthly or annual energy balances, with correspondingly approximate representations of heating systems and practices (incl

Operational parameters of air handling units (AHUs) play an important role in the energy and comfort performance of commercial buildings. Current guidelines to determine these parameters are based on heuristics and are not informed by formal optimization. This paper presents a building performance optimization method to derive sequence of operations for multi-zone AHUs. To this end, 27 variants of

Full integration of building energy modelling into the design and retrofit process has long been a goal of building scientists and practitioners. However, significant barriers still exist. Among them are the lack of available: (1) configurable technology stacks for performing both small- and large-scale analyses, (2) different classes of algorithms compatible with common design workflows, and (3) analysis

Predictive controllers can greatly improve the performance of energy systems in buildings. An important challenge of these controllers is the need of a building model accurate and simple enough for optimization. Grey-box modelling stands as a popular approach, but the identification of reliable grey-box models is hampered by the complexity of the parameter estimation process, specifically for multi-zone

This paper compares Building Control Virtual Test Bed (BCVTB) and Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI) standard to conduct coupled energy modelling and control for academic and research campuses. The intent is to systematically compare BCVTB and FMI. As proof-of-concept demonstration, building energy models of Colorado School of Mines are developed in EnergyPlus and coupled through BCVTB and FMI. The

Developing a computationally efficient but accurate building energy simulation (BES) model is important for many purposes. Model order reduction (MOR) methods are attractive and much more reliable than identification approaches, since it directly extract a lower-dimensional model from a detailed physics-based model without any pre-simulations. However, because of computational and data storage requirements

The present study numerically and experimentally investigates, for the first time in the literature, the thermo-fluid dynamics and ultrafine particle (UFP) concentration in surgical smoke, with diameters smaller than 100 nm, inside an actual operating room (OR) equipped with a turbulent circular diffuser system. The velocity values and temperature fields measured during the experimental analysis at

Planning the operation of large ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems requires accurate models of borehole heat exchangers (BHEs) that are not computationally intensive. In this paper, we propose parameter estimation using measured data as a method to improve the analytical models of BHE. The method was applied to a GSHP system operating for over 3 years. The deviation between modelled and measured

ABSTRACT Active chilled beams (ACBs) are often modelled as generic cooling devices. Due to induction, the air flow discharged from an ACB is several times higher than supplied from the air handling unit, and due to its design, it affects the temperature of the ceiling to a greater extent than an arbitrary cooling device. This paper investigates the impact of taking these features into account when

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

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

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