Distributed Building Performance Simulation— A Novel Approach to Overcome Legacy Code Limi.pdf

VOLUME 12, NUMBER 3a HVACR RESEARCH SPECIAL ISSUE JULY 2006 ?2006, American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. (). Published in HVACR Research, Vol. 12, No. 3a, July 2006. For personal use only. Additional distribution in either paper or digital form is not permitted without ASHRAE’s permission.Distributed Building Performance Simulation— A Novel Approach to Overcome Legacy Code Limitations M. Trcka (Radosevic) J.L.M. Hensen, PhD A.J.Th.M. Wijsman ASHRAE Associate Member ASHRAE Member Received December 20, 2005; accepted March 24, 2006 This paper describes the development of as well as implementation strategies for distributed simulation of building systems by run-time coupling of existing software. The approach differs from the traditional way of developing software in which additional models are added by incor- porating new modules into an existing program. This paper focuses on the actual coupling mechanism. A case study is presented that illustrates the need and potential of the approach. The conclusion is that a distributed simulation environment is more flexible, practical, and pow- erful than the sum of the individual software programs. INTRODUCTION The traditional (manual) methods for designing heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems are being surpassed by simulation tools because ? buildings have become more and more complex in terms of shape, layout, functionality, and services; ? requirements for flexibility and adaptability have increased; and ? modern building standards and codes are performance based rather then prescriptive, address- ing questions such as “how many hours per year will the temperature rise above a certain value?” and “what will be the annual energy consumption per square meter floor?” Advances in hardware and software have resulted in a flood of building simulation tools. However, each tool is applicable to only a subset of the overall problem and is limited both in scope and resolu