[BLDG-SIM] About coupling air flow

[Jon Hand]

The grand old beastie of natural ventilation simulation within
buildings is ESP-r (http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk). A brief
summary:

a) It has been doing buildling-coupled mass flow simulation for
    more than a decade, it is stable and mature and can
    work with complex networks (e.g. multiple unconnected
    buildings) with simulation timesteps down to one minute.
    A conservative count is that hundreds of models with
    flow networks have been created in the ESP-r community, 
    I've probably done 50-60 of them myself. 
    
    For many ESP-r  users natural and/or
    hybrid ventilation is nothing at all special (although some
    novices have spotted the occassional fire-breathing dragon).

b) It compares well with COMIS and CONTAM but with full
    thermal coupling of the predicted mass flows with the
    zone thermal solver and as well as coupled to a CFD
    domain for even higher resolution.

c) You can control window openings and doors and fans
    based on a variety of sensed conditions including CO2
    levels. It has bi-directional flow components for doors as well
    as all the usual suspects.

d) It comes with facilities to graph and export and report
    on what is happening in the flow network (as well as
    everything else in the simulation) so you can find out
    not only where and when flow occurred, but the energy
    implications of that flow.

e) ESP-r runs on just about every type of computer and
    operating system. It is GPLed so you can look at the
    code and add in your own components. The download
    page has both the source as well as pre-compiled
    binaries for various platforms.

-Jon Hand

======================================================
You received this e-mail because you are subscribed 
to the BLDG-SIM at GARD.COM mailing list.  To unsubscribe 
from this mailing list send a blank message to 
BLDG-SIM-UNSUBSCRIBE at GARD.COM