How to interprete these results?

therapy · Posts: 11

I have a question about results of simulations I have done.
I did simulations of 5- and 10-floor buildings with different types of glazing.
The 2 building types (5- and 10-floor) had different shapes:
- square basis - length to width ratio 1:1,
- rectangular basis - length to width ratio 2:1 and 4:1
so there were 6 building cases intogether.

All building cases had the same volume which was heated and cooled through the year.

The mean difference between heating (red line) and cooling loads (blue line) shows the diagram below. Also there is a black line which corresponds to the A/V coefficient (the area of building envelope to its volume ratio).

According to the different books and papers buildings, there sohuld be a correlation between A/V ratio and energy loads - buildings with smallest A/V ratio with the same volume should have lowest energy demand.

Values shown on the graph tell that this could be true if you analyze buildings with one height (5- or 10-floor), but not all of them.

Also cooling loads for 10-floor 2:1 ratio buidings is slighty lower than for 10-floor square cases.

Could there be some mistake in the simulations or is it OK?

Cheers
Lukasz

AOG · Posts: 73

Lukasz,

Just a little thought (I've not much experience in this kind of analysis). Have you compared results with ground floor-roof area / wall area ratios? I think that, depending on site latitude and climate this factor could make a great difference.

Best regards,

Arturo

therapy · Posts: 11

Thanks Arturo, I'll check that.

But apart from, there is a well known correlation between lets say "compactness" - buldings with more regular shapes, less edges, need less energy - the ideal shape is a sphere - it has smallest A/V ratio at the same volume. So I thought my graph should look so.

Lukasz

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