Validation of dynamic thermal models

Abstract

The Building Sub-committee of the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) of the United Kingdom has for some years fostered the development of several dynamic thermal models and it was recognized that the models developed should be independently validated. A collaborative venture with the Building Research Establishment (BRE), Leicester Polytechnic, Nottingham University and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) started early in 1984 with the objective of developing tools which may be used by the model developers, users and validators. The resources and the time-scale of the project has meant that the number of problems tackled must be restricted and that the development of tools for validation must be an ongoing process. As much of the work is about to be published elsewhere, this paper only gives a brief description of some aspects of the work with some emphasis being placed on the statistical analysis techniques being developed. The interested reader is warmly encouraged to follow up the references quoted; the opinions and views expressed in this paper represent those of the author.