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vav Working With Large Models
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Local clock time It is possible to create very large, complex building models using DesignBuilder but you should
Local VAV
1
mean time
Terminal Units
consider what you're trying to achieve by your modelling exercise before diving in and including
every detail of the building design. Otherwise you may find you have created a beautiful model
2 VAV which is impractical to simulate because it takes too long or causes the simulation engine to fail.
3 Heating You can should consider the following points.
4 VAV Cooling Sizing EnergyPlus simulations are slowed
5 Calculation of DesignBuild down by:
6 HVAC System Type
1. Lots of windows
7 Outside Air 2. Lots of zones
8 Plenums 3. Lots of windows per zone
9 HVAC Templates - System 4. Lots of surfaces
10 Cooling 5. VAV Compact HVAC
descriptions
11 HVAC data
6. Radiant heating systems
12 Heat Recovery (Simple and Compact HVAC)
13 Working with Large Model 7. Calculated natural ventilation
14 HVAC Control Zones using AIRNET
15 Cooling systems sizing 8. Calculating solar reflections
9. Reading hourly or sub-hourly
results for extended simulation
TOC periods
10. Not enough computer memory
Index (RAM)
11. Lots of output (quantity of data
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and number of reports)
Favorites 12. Lots of timesteps per hour

You can speed up modelling, and in particular the drawing and deleting of partitions in large
models, by switching off Automatic block zoning option.

You can speed up simulations by using these techniques:

1. Reduce the number of windows in the model by increasing the Window spacing. Shading
issues aside, modelling a small number of large Windows has the same effect as a large
number of small Windows provided you get the frame area right.
2. Avoid unnecessary wiggles and indents in block perimeters and partitions - keep it as
simple as possible. The larger the model the more important it is to follow this advice.
Where an indent in the perimeter gives shading then you could instead model this using
a single flat surface without indent and use local shading devices with sidefins to model
local window shading.
3. Use the Lump similar windows on surface option to speed up simulations with many
similar windows per surface. Note that switching this option on has no effect for zones
using Daylight lighting control or if the Full interior and exterior solar distribution option is
selected.
4. Wherever possible lump similar adjacent zones together. Only create zones to model
areas of the building with specific environmental conditions, and HVAC systems or
internal gains schedules. A common mistake made by the beginners is to model each
room as a separate zone. This is often not necessary for building energy simulations
because many rooms will have reasonably similar operating conditions. In this case you
may want to use one of the DesignBuilder Merging features to reduce the number of
zones.
5. If there are multiple identical zones then you can use the Zone multiplier to reduce the
number of zones processed.

http://www.designbuilder.co.uk/helpv2/[13-09-2010 00:53:31]
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6. When you first create a building model you may want to carry out simulations before
partitioning the blocks into zones. If your un-partitioned blocks are very large there could
be an enormous number of windows in the single zone making up a block and this can
slow down EnergyPlus simulations especially if carrying out daylighting analysis. In this
case you should try to reduce the number of windows in the model as recommended
above.
7. Try to use the smallest number of blocks possible to keep the number of surfaces down.
8. Exclude semi-exterior unconditioned zones from the model and replace them with an R-
Value.
9. Use Simple, (convective heating) HVAC descriptions.
10. Use the Scheduled Natural ventilation option.
11. If you need to use Calculated natural ventilation in your simulations then you should aim
to minimise the number of cracks and openings involved in the airflow calculations. One
way to do this is to switch off infiltration calculations. Normally DesignBuilder includes a
single crack in each surface in the simulation to simulate infiltration. If you have other
openings such as vents, windows, doors etc in a particular block/zone you can switch off
infiltration. This approach can be used in roof blocks or calculations such as cooling
design where infiltration is relatively insignificant.
12. Switching off calculation of solar reflections in the Model options dialog
13. Restricting hourly and sub-hourly results to short simulations for investigation of detailed
building operation. You should not attempt to generate hourly or sub-hourly results for
long periods (such as a whole year) unless your model is simple.
14. If you are interested in analysing a single zone within a much larger model, you could
consider using the single zone option to carry out simulations just on the zone, excluding
consideration of the rest of the building.
15. If you want to model a only a group of zones then you can exclude unnecessary zones by
unchecking the Include zone model option.
16. Fit as much memory (RAM) to your computer as possible (2-4 GB ideally). Paging
memory to disk during simulations of large models can cause EnergyPlus to grind to a
halt.
17. Only request the output you really need. This will speed up simulation initialisation and
reading of output (especially hourly and sub-hourly) at the end. If you are only looking at
hourly results then you can get noticeably faster initialisation and simulations by switching
off monthly and daily results. For example, simulation times for a test winter week
simulation on a real model were:

1. - With hourly, daily, monthly outputs: 39 min

2. - Only hourly outputs: 14 min
3. - Only hourly outputs and checking 'Internal surface as adiabatic': 12 min
18. If you don't need surface data (Walls, Windows etc. heat transfer) switch the Surface heat
transfer incl solar output option off.
19. Note that if you request large volumes of data this can result is a program crash when
results are being loaded into DesignBuilder.
20. It is sometimes possible to use less timesteps per hour to speed up simulations. Some
models can give reliable results using 2 timesteps per hour, however when complex
Compact HVAC systems are being modelled, 4, 6 or even 10 timesteps may be required.
If you aren't sure, compare the hourly results you obtain when using a range of timesteps
per hour values and choose the minimum value that gives results equivalent to the 6 or
10 timesteps case.
21. If all else fails then you can model very large buildings by splitting them into smaller units
and summing results outside DesignBuilder.

http://www.designbuilder.co.uk/helpv2/[13-09-2010 00:53:31]
DesignBuilder Help

http://www.designbuilder.co.uk/helpv2/[13-09-2010 00:53:31]