Thermal models of buildings : determination of temperatures, heating and cooling loads : theories, models and computer programs

The need to estimate indoor temperatures, heating or cooling load and energy requirements for buildings arises in many stages of a buildings life cycle, e.g. at the early layout stage, during the design of a building and for energy retrofitting planning. Other purposes are to meat the authorities requirements given in building codes. All these situations require good calculation methods.

The main purpose of this report is to present the authors work with problems related to thermal models and calculation methods for determination of temperatures and heating or cooling loads in buildings.

Thus the major part of the report deals with treatment of solar radiation in glazing systems, shading of solar and sky radiation and the computer program JULOTTA used to simulate the thermal behavior of rooms and buildings. Other parts of thermal models of buildings are more briefly discussed and included in order to give an overview of existing problems and available solutions.

A brief presentation of how thermal models can be build up is also given and it is a hope that the report can be useful as an introduction to this part of building physics as well as during development of calculation methods and computer programs.

The report may also serve as a help for the users of energy related programs. Independent of which method or program a user choose to work with it is his or her own responsibility to understand the limits of the tool, else wrong conclusions may be drawn from the results.