I myself have tried performing sensitivity analysis in the framework of my PhD thesis and I have to tell you that it is a very difficult task. You will be looking at nonlinear, transient, sensitivity analysis. The problem is that Energy flows in buildings are interconnected and very tightly correlated, to the point that a sensitivity analysis does not yield useful results. I am aware of a 10 year project focusing on reducing energy simulation parameters during building design through sensitivity analysis, and the project just failed.
My advice would be to fix all constructional and operational parameters, use a typical hot, mild and a cold climate file, and run yearly simulations for different orientations of the building. So if you are considering a 30 degree rotation step, you can run 360/30=12 simulations for each weather file, so a total of 12*3=36 simulations, and compare results for each climate file.
Hope that helps. Let's hear what others have to say.
Jim
On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 8:59 AM, Rose Martin rose.arch2014@xxxxxxxxx [EnergyPlus_Support] <EnergyPlus_Support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
ÂHi everybody
I would like to do a sensitivity analysis for some building parameters like orientation and find their impact on the total energy consumption. I changed building orientation and calculated the total energy consumption value for each orientation. Thus I don't have any function to derive from it to calculate the sensitivity analysis, while I just have all total energy consumption value as points. I did this for other building parameters too.
My question is that how I can find  what building parameter has more impact on the total energy consumption? Is there any sensitivity analysis formula or method for my case please?
Help is greatly appreciated.
Rose
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Posted by: Jim Sfakianakis <dsfakianakis@xxxxxxxxx>
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