Wall thickness & IP units

taharvey · Posts: 57

Andy,

I don't understand the wall thickness parameter during drawing a building. Shouldn't this be determined by the wall construction material selection?

Also there are many places (e.g. glazings) where the program, when set to IP units, desplays a conductivity number labeled as "btu/h*ft^2*F" but the number is actually W/m^2*k. This is very confusing.

Troy

Andy Tindale · Posts: 1082 Location: Stroud

Troy,

Apologies for the slow response to this and your other messages, I have been very busy recently with the new release.

The idea of the wall thickness parameter is to allow you to control the geometrical thickness of the slabs used to make up blocks as you draw them. The thickness does not necessarily have to be the same as the construction thickness - EnergyPlus simulations will use the thermal properties of the wall construction so from this point of view the geometric wall thickness does not affect the simulation. But clearly from the modelling point of view, the thickness should be set accurately so that the correct internal surface areas and volumes are calculated.

The wall thickness parameter defaults to the thickness of the currently selected building wall construction as you suggest it should be. I've just tested it again and it seems to work okay. Please let me know if you still feel there is a problem, describing the actions you are taking, what you see and how this differs from what you expect to see.

The problem with conductivity IP units was fixed in version 1.0.2.

Andy

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