Co-simulation of innovative integrated HVAC systems in buildings

Integrated performance simulation of buildings' heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems can help in reducing energy consumption and increasing occupant comfort. However, no single building performance simulation (BPS) tool offers sufficient capabilities and flexibilities to analyse integrated building systems and to enable rapid prototyping of innovative building and system technologies. One way to alleviate this problem is to use co-simulation, as an integrated approach to simulation.  This article elaborates on issues important for co-simulation realization and discusses multiple possibilities to justify the particular approach implemented in the here described co-simulation prototype. The prototype is validated with the results obtained from the traditional simulation approach. It is further used in a proof-of-concept case study to demonstrate the applicability of the method and to highlight its benefits. Stability and accuracy of different coupling strategies are analysed to give a guideline for the required coupling time step.

[1]  Jlm Jan Hensen,et al.  On the thermal interaction of building structure and heating and ventilating system , 1991 .

[2]  Jlm Jan Hensen,et al.  Developing CORBA-based distributed control and building performance environments by run-time coupling , 2004 .

[3]  Albert Burger,et al.  Advanced distributed simulation: a review of developments and their implication for data collection and analysis , 2000, Simul. Pract. Theory.

[4]  Edward A. Lee,et al.  Heterogeneous Concurrent Modeling and Design in Java (Volume 2: Ptolemy II Software Architecture) , 2008 .

[5]  Werner Schiehlen,et al.  Two Methods of Simulator Coupling , 2000 .

[6]  E Ery Djunaedy,et al.  External coupling between building energy simulation and computational fluid dynamics , 2005 .

[7]  J. Lambert.  Numerical Methods for Ordinary Differential Systems: The Initial Value Problem , 1991 .

[8]  Edward A. Lee,et al.  Ptolemy II, Heterogeneous Concurrent Modeling and Design in JAVA , 2001 .

[9]  Agostino G. Bruzzone,et al.  Distributed simulation and industry: potentials and pitfalls , 2002, Proceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference.

[10]  David E. Bradley,et al.  Combining different validation techniques for continuous software improvement - Implications in the development of TRNSYS 16 , 2004 .

[11]  Isaac Lopez,et al.  A CORBA-based development environment for wrapping and coupling legacy scientific codes , 2001, Proceedings 10th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing.

[12]  J. M. Watt.  Numerical Initial Value Problems in Ordinary Differential Equations , 1972 .

[13]  R. Judkoff,et al.  International Energy Agency Building Energy Simulation Test and Diagnostic Method for Heating, Ventilating, and Air-Conditioning Equipment Models (HVAC BESTEST); Volume 1: Cases E100-E200 , 2002 .

[14]  K. C. Park,et al.  Partitioned Transient Analysis Procedures for Coupled-Field Problems. , 1979 .

[15]  E Ery Djunaedy,et al.  Building performance simulation for better design: some issues and solutions , 2004 .

[16]  Martin Arnold,et al.  Modular dynamical simulation of mechatronic and coupled systems , 2002 .

[17]  Edward A. Lee,et al.  Structure and interpretation of signals and systems , 2002 .

[18]  Richard M. Fujimoto,et al.  Time Management in The High Level Architecture , 1998, Simul..

[19]  Jlm Jan Hensen,et al.  Integrated Simulation for HVAC Performance Prediction: State-of-the-Art Illustration , 2000 .

[20]  Charbel Farhat,et al.  Partitioned analysis of coupled mechanical systems , 2001 .

[21]  Zhou Wang,et al.  Research on Construction and Interoperability of Complex Distributed Simulation System , 2004, AsiaSim.

[22]  Azzedine Boukerche,et al.  Multiuser 3D virtual simulation environments support in the Gnutella peer-to-peer network , 2005, J. Parallel Distributed Comput..

[23]  J. Neymark,et al.  International Energy Agency Building Energy Simulation Test and Diagnostic Method for Heating, Ventilating, and Air-Conditioning Equipment Models (HVAC BESTEST): Volume 2: Cases E300-E545. , 2004 .

[24]  Jim Duggan,et al.  A distributed computing approach to system dynamics , 2002 .

[25]  Craig P. Wray,et al.  Standard Method of Test for the Evaluation of Building Energy Analysis Computer Programs , 1999 .

[26]  新 雅夫,et al.  ASHRAE(American Society of Heating,Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers)大会"国際年"行事に参加して , 1975 .

[27]  M. Grott,et al.  Simulation of stellar instabilities with vastly different time-scales using domain decomposition , 2003 .

[28]  Jong Sik Lee.  High Performance Modeling for Distributed Simulation , 2004, AIS.

[29]  Roberto Revetria,et al.  Distributed Simulation in Industry , 2007 .

[30]  Ian Beausoleil-Morrison,et al.  Integrated simulation through the source-code coupling of component models from a modular simulation environment into a comprehensive building performance simulation tool , 2009 .

[31]  Jlm Jan Hensen,et al.  Distributed simulation of building systems for legacy software reuse , 2006 .

[32]  Michael Wetter.  Modelica-based Modeling and Simulation to Support Research and Development in Building Energy and Control Systems , 2010 .

[33]  Russell D. Taylor,et al.  LINKING THE COMIS MULTI-ZONE AIRFLOW MODEL WITH THE ENERGYPLUS BUILDING ENERGY SIMULATION PROGRAM , 1999 .

[34]  P. L'Ecuyer,et al.  Panel: strategic directions in simulation research , 1999, WSC'99. 1999 Winter Simulation Conference Proceedings. 'Simulation - A Bridge to the Future' (Cat. No.99CH37038).

[35]  Isaac Lopez,et al.  Development of CORBA-based engineering applications from legacy Fortran programs , 2002, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[36]  Jlm Jan Hensen,et al.  Integrated Building and System Simulation Using Run-Time Coupled Distributed Models , 2006 .

[37]  Jlm Jan Hensen,et al.  Implementation strategies for distributed modeling and simulation of building systems , 2005 .

[38]  Zhiqiang Zhai,et al.  Developing an integrated building design tool by coupling building energy simulation and computational fluid dynamics programs , 2003 .

[39]  M. Th. van Genuchten,et al.  A partitioned solution procedure for simulating water flow in a variably saturated dual-porosity medium , 1995 .

[40]  M Marija Trcka,et al.  Co-simulation for performance prediction of innovative integrated mechanical energy systems in buildings , 2008 .

[41]  Terje Hertzberg,et al.  Convergence and stability of the sequential modular approach to dynamic process simulation , 1988 .

[42]  Magne Hillestad,et al.  Dynamic Simulation of Chemical Engineering Systems by the Sequential Modular Approach , 1986 .

[43]  Azzedine Boukerche,et al.  Resource control for large-scale distributed simulation system over loosely coupled domains , 2005, J. Parallel Distributed Comput..

[44]  Mglc Marcel Loomans,et al.  Toward external coupling of building energy and airflow modelling programs , 2003 .

[45]  Jlm Jan Hensen,et al.  Comparison of coupled and decoupled solutions for temperature and air flow in a building , 1999 .

[46]  Essam O Aasem.  PRACTICAL SIMULATION OF BUILDINGS AND AIR-CONDITIONING SYSTEMS IN THE TRANSIENT DOMAIN , 1993 .

[47]  Alain Combescure,et al.  Multi-time-step explicit–implicit method for non-linear structural dynamics , 2001 .

[48]  Philip Haves,et al.  A Modular Building Controls Virtual Test Bed for the Integrations of Heterogeneous Systems , 2008 .

[49]  R. Judkoff,et al.  International Energy Agency building energy simulation test (BESTEST) and diagnostic method , 1995 .

[50]  Robert J. Hitchcock,et al.  Delight2 Daylighting Analysis in Energy Plus: Integration and Preliminary User Results , 2005 .

[51]  Steven J. Emmerich,et al.  Integration of Airflow and Energy Simulation Using CONTAM and TRNSYS | NIST , 2003 .

[52]  Laxmikant V. Kalé,et al.  A New Approach to Software Integration Frameworks for Multi-physics Simulation Codes , 2000, The Architecture of Scientific Software.

[53]  Richard M. Fujimoto,et al.  Synchronized data distribution management in distributed simulations , 1998, Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Simulation.

[54]  J. Hensen,et al.  TOWARDS EXTERNAL COUPLING OF BUILDING ENERGY AND AIR FLOW MODELING PROGRAMS , 2002 .

[55]  P. Sánchez,et al.  DISTRIBUTED SIMULATION SYSTEMS , 2002 .

[56]  Lei Zhang,et al.  Flexible Cycle Synchronized Algorithm in Parallel and Distributed Simulation , 2004, IWDC.