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M. Alhayek, A. Wadi, U. Pont, A. Mahdavi:
"Prediction of buildings' cooling energy demand: A comparison of simulation-based and prescriptive approaches";
Talk: 10th Int. Conference on Indoor Air Quality, Ventilation and Energy Conservation in Buildings (X IAQVEC2019), Bari, Italy; 2019-09-05 - 2019-09-07; in: "Proceedings of the 10th Int. Conference on Indoor Air Quality, Ventilation and Energy Conservation in Buildings (X IAQVEC2019)", U. Berardi et al. (ed.); (2019), Paper ID ZEB9, 8 pages.

Detailed simulation of buildings' thermal performance can provide useful information for building designers and engineers. However, deployment of detailed simulation involves a number of challenges, including time and effort expenditures not accounted for in many typical building delivery processes. In this context, careful application of simplified methods may provide - at least for a specific class of applications - a reasonable alternative. The present contribution explores this possibility via a specific case study involving a large sample of residential buildings in Gaza, Palestine. This sample includes some fifty multi-unit apartment buildings representing the bulk of residential building stock in Gaza. These buildings were subjected to computational cooling energy demand assessment, whereby both numeric simulation and derivative simplified methods were applied. Numeric simulations were performed using EnergyPlus. For simplified calculations, a regression-based procedure was derived. Toward this end, a number of candidate independent variables (e.g., compactness, effective window-to-wall ration, LEK value, mean effective U-value) were considered and the level of their association with the computed values of the designated building performance indicators was observed. The comparison of the results of the simplified and simulation-based methods revealed a reasonable level of agreement. In other words, the application of the simplified method provides in the majority of the cases performance indicator values that are close enough to the corresponding results of the simulation-based method. This implies that simplified methods and associated prescriptive procedures may provide an attractive alternative to highly detailed simulation studies in cases were the paucity of information and/or computational resources may represent a challenge (e.g., early design stages, insufficient preparedness of the professional community, contextual constraints).

(no german Kurzfassung)
Detailed simulation of buildings' thermal performance can provide useful information for building designers and engineers. However, deployment of detailed simulation involves a number of challenges, including time and effort expenditures not accounted for in many typical building delivery processes. In this context, careful application of simplified methods may provide - at least for a specific class of applications - a reasonable alternative. The present contribution explores this possibility via a specific case study involving a large sample of residential buildings in Gaza, Palestine. This sample includes some fifty multi-unit apartment buildings representing the bulk of residential building stock in Gaza. These buildings were subjected to computational cooling energy demand assessment, whereby both numeric simulation and derivative simplified methods were applied. Numeric simulations were performed using EnergyPlus. For simplified calculations, a regression-based procedure was derived. Toward this end, a number of candidate independent variables (e.g., compactness, effective window-to-wall ration, LEK value, mean effective U-value) were considered and the level of their association with the computed values of the designated building performance indicators was observed. The comparison of the results of the simplified and simulation-based methods revealed a reasonable level of agreement. In other words, the application of the simplified method provides in the majority of the cases performance indicator values that are close enough to the corresponding results of the simulation-based method. This implies that simplified methods and associated prescriptive procedures may provide an attractive alternative to highly detailed simulation studies in cases were the paucity of information and/or computational resources may represent a challenge (e.g., early design stages, insufficient preparedness of the professional community, contextual constraints).