In building energy simulation, indoor thermal comfort condition, energy use and equipment size are typically calculated based on the assumption that the clothing insulation is equal to a constant value of 0.5 clo during the cooling season and 1.0 clo during the heating season. The assumption is not reflected in practice and thus it may lead to errors. In reality, occupants frequently adjust the...

Repeated modifications of multiple design parameters are required to optimize daylighting system design. However, a large number of optional design parameters increase the computation time. This research developed a simulation-based model to evaluate daylighting system design based on system daylighting and thermal performance. The model utilized the prediction methods to speed up computation. ...

The paper describes a process that efficiently supports the early building design stage with prototype tools to capture topological floor plan sketches, calculate geometries, explore design alternatives, and generate data for performance simulations, for example for EnergyPlus. It is also shown how such data are used to generate object-model based simulators in the Virtual Building Laboratory e...

A good green building design project, designers should consider not only energy consumption, but also healthy and comfortable needs of inhabitants. In recent years, the Taiwan government paid attentions on both carbon reduction and indoor air quality issues, which be presented in the legislation of Building Codes and other regulations. Taiwan located in hot and humid climates, dampness in build...

Community-scale modeling is a rapidly growing area of interest for planners, policy makers, and researchers. There are, however, few software tools that enable large-scale parametric studies of communities based on detailed energy models of buildings. This paper presents a tool called Params-NZP for automatically generating and running full EnergyPlus models for the parametric analysis of entir...

The PSTAR (Primary and Secondary Terms Analysis and Renormalization) method was developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to determine the key thermal parameters of a building from short-term outdoor test results. This paper shows an application of the PSTAR method as a quantitative guidance to calibrate a detailed thermal model of a dwelling. An existing dwelling sited in so...

The current practice with building energy simulation software tools requires the manual entry of a large list detailed inputs pertaining to characteristics, geographical region, schedule operation, end users, occupancy, control aspects, and more. While these allow evaluation consumption various combinations parameters, information considering number parameters related design global optimization...