RE: [EnergyPlus_Support] Re: non-planar

[Yuen Liu <yli006@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks, Bernd, for the explanation of the part of the ceiling which is a thermal activated concrete.  I know this types of construction.  In Canada, concrete with heating wires are commonly used. 

If the  walls are made of flat pieces to produce a curved facade, the ceiling can be made up of triangles from the top of these walls to a centre point.  In this way, the ceiling may not be flat due to rounding off in vertex calculation, but will not generate non-planar error messages.

Dr. Li. 

P.S. We are no so formal in the West.  My Chinese name is difficult to pronounce.  Many Canadian think that I  am Yvan Liu.  Because I am a retired University Professor,  Dr.Li became my common name here.



To: EnergyPlus_Support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: bernd.worm@xxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 02:31:33 -0700
Subject: RE: [EnergyPlus_Support] Re: non-planar



Hello Dr. Li, hello Linda,
Thank you very much for your help and your advices.
 I didn?t know the Helpdesk, but I think this will help me very much.


> I am interested to know what is the  surfaces as part of a thermal activated concrete       > ceiling.  
> Were you trying to include the thermal expansion variation into the surface dimension     > entries?



> Normally, ceiling is flat.  If one side is flat and the other surface changes, you can use the > flat surface and leave the other side undefined.



Let me try to describe the ceiling and where the problem comes from:

The geometry of the building I have to simulate is therefore tricky, because it is build out of a half ellipse and a half circle. In the circle area there is no problem with the ceiling, but in the ellipse section. The ceiling has a normal height of 3.54 m but at the connection to the façade it goes up to 3.75 m. The distance to the façade is 1.8 m at that point. This is because between the ceiling and the floor in the next level there is a 40 cm hollow floor for the installations.