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The modelling gap: quantifying the discrepancy in the representation of thermal mass in building simulation

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posted on 2018-01-04, 14:58 authored by Eirini Mantesi, Christina Hopfe, Malcolm CookMalcolm Cook, Jacqui Glass, Paul Strachan
Enhanced fabric performance is fundamental to reduce the energy consumption in buildings. Research has shown that the thermal mass of the fabric can be used as a passive design strategy to reduce energy use for space conditioning. Concrete is a high density material, therefore said to have high thermal mass. Insulating concrete formwork (ICF) consists of cast in-situ concrete poured between two layers of insulation. ICF is generally perceived as a thermally lightweight construction, although previous field studies indicated that ICF shows evidence of heat storage effects. There is a need for accurate performance prediction when designing new buildings. This is challenging in particular when using advanced or new methods (such as ICF), that are not yet well researched. Building Performance Simulation (BPS) is often used to predict the thermal performance of buildings. Large discrepancies can occur in the simulation predictions provided by different BPS tools. In many cases assumptions embedded within the tools are outside of the modeller's control. At other times, users are required to make decisions on whether to rely on the default settings or to specify the input values and algorithms to be used in the simulation. This paper investigates the “modelling gap”, the impact of default settings and the implications of the various calculation algorithms on the results divergence in thermal mass simulation using different tools. ICF is compared with low and high thermal mass constructions. The results indicated that the modelling uncertainties accounted for up to 26% of the variation in the simulation predictions.

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Centre for Innovative and Collaborative Construction Engineering at Loughborough University for the provision of a grant (number EPG037272) to undertake this research project in collaboration with Aggregate Industries UK Ltd.

History

School

  • Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering

Published in

Building and Environment

Volume

131

Pages

74-98

Citation

MANTESI, E. ... et al, 2018. The modelling gap: quantifying the discrepancy in the representation of thermal mass in building simulation. Building and Environment, 131, pp. 74-98.

Publisher

Elsevier

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Acceptance date

2017-12-15

Publication date

2017-12-20

Copyright date

2018

Notes

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Elsevier under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

ISSN

0360-1323

Language

  • en