Building Performance Analysis and Simulation: We’ve Come a Long Way

V Ugursal

doi:10.3390/buildings4040762

Abstract

Back in 1981, when I started doing building energy performance simulation for pre-design and energy efficiency retrofit work, building simulation was in its infancy. There were only a handful of building energy simulation programs, with DOE-2, ESP-II, BLAST, TRACE and MERIWHETHER being the most commonly used ones by consultants [1]. These programs required "mainframe" computers, so I used to prepare the input files on a Radio Shack TRS-80, send it over a telephone modem to a company in Toronto that ran the simulation on a mainframe computer overnight and shipped the printed output to me by courier in the morning. Each run had a turn-around time of almost 48 h, and the run-time and courier charges were about $100, almost as much as a day's salary for a young engineer. [...]

Highlights

Back in 1981, when I started doing building energy performance simulation for pre-design and energy efficiency retrofit work, building simulation was in its infancy
The building performance analysis and simulation landscape is completely different with a wide range of building simulation software that run on desktop or laptop computers, at different levels of complexity and sophistication, and for a wide range of purposes including load estimation, whole building energy, air-flow and indoor air quality analysis, heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) and lighting system design, code compliance, retrofit, renewable energy and economic analysis [2]
Considering the ubiquity of “building performance and simulation” in the world of building engineering and research, this Special Issue of Buildings was conceived and I had the pleasure of acting as the special issue editor

Summary

Introduction

Back in 1981, when I started doing building energy performance simulation for pre-design and energy efficiency retrofit work, building simulation was in its infancy. The building performance analysis and simulation landscape is completely different with a wide range of building simulation software that run on desktop or laptop computers, at different levels of complexity and sophistication, and for a wide range of purposes including load estimation, whole building energy, air-flow and indoor air quality analysis, heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) and lighting system design, code compliance, retrofit, renewable energy and economic analysis [2].

Results

Conclusion