Esp-r Easy

By Roman Rabenseifer

The aim of this book is to explain the principles of the building performance simulation in a concise and comprehensible way using illustrated examples with detailed description. After having read this book the reader should be able to set up his/her own building model and investigate typical cases like the annual demand for heating or cooling, the maximum indoor temperature during the summer or the number of hours with certain indoor temperature. The basic knowledge of the physics of buildings is expected. If this is not the case, it is recommended to take a course in the building physics or self-study the relevant literature before starting with building performance simulation at all. It is also assumed that the reader has installed on his computer a software esp-r. The esp-r is a software for complex building performance simulation aimed at advanced end-users. The ambition of this booklet is to show that the esp-r can be used successfully even by non-experienced users, who could very much benefit from its easy availability.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roman Rabenseifer
• Release date: Dec 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393187806

Book preview

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Many people have helped me with the production of this booklet, from among of which I would like to particularly mention Professor Dr. Erich Panzhauser and Dr. Milan Janák for expert reviews and comments, and Mrs. Regina Pfeiffer, former English teacher at Stuttgart’s Wall Street School, for proofreading. I also want to thank my parents for helping me in various ways.

PREFACE

Acomputer aided simulation of the future building performance is more and more used in the building practice. It goes from simple calculations of the future energy demand for heating based on the mean U-Values and heating degree-days up to the highly sophisticated dynamic simulations of various aspects of the future building behavior at the same time. Two main branches of the building performance simulation can be distinguished - the whole building simulation and the one of single building details. The latter is used mostly for the assessment of the building envelope quality in a particular detail, e.g. whether the dew point occurs on the interior side of the window frame or room corner. The whole building performance simulation focuses on the mutual interaction between the building envelope quality and its geometry on the one hand and the building systems, e.g. heating, cooling or shading, on the other hand. Both kinds of the building performance simulation are usually done for climate conditions defined in a certain way and representing the most often occurring influence on the future building performance. However, they can be made for other purposes as well, e.g. fire safety, where the boundary conditions could be an extremely high temperature and an air flow representing the fire propagation. The opportunities for the use of the building performance simulation are very broad. Though one of its main advantages is a gain of a higher certainty that the designed building will work as intended, provided the right decisions are chosen, the architects often do not make use of it. Perhaps is this fact caused by nature of the results, which are usually in a form of sober diagrams and numbers that need additional explanation. Hence, the architects leave it better upon the building professionals and make their initial decision very often on nothing more than experiences made, estimates or good feeling. This attitude makes the building professionals feel like firemen, who later try to save what can be saved. In short, the use of the building performance simulation at the beginning of the design process can help in avoiding serious wrong decisions and moreover in finding new and unexpected solutions. As a bonus an enhanced mutual understanding between architects and building professionals can be perceived. Therefore, the aim of this book is to explain the principles of the building performance simulation in a concise and comprehensible way using illustrated examples with detailed description.