looked at autodesk simulation cfd 2015 and was optimistic because it had an export plugin from revit, which i use anyway for material takeoffs and etc, but found that it did not take solar radiation into account. This was a downer because I have heard that solar radiation could effect indoor airflow - convection - as much as 50 percent at a time.
Then I searched again and found that Hyperworks, a software by altair technology can be coupled with a radiation software. So I went through the trouble of obtaining an educational license of Hyperworks. However, though some email exchange I have found that the coupling is a one-way. The radiation analysis software was used, I think, for understanding the solar loading for a SOM project called church of light.
The support guy said : "Unfortunately our coupling with Hyperworks is really a one way coupling. We can accept H coefficients from their software in RadTherm, but they will not read in our wall temps. That said, it still can be a useful coupling in the sense that you can run the analysis in Hyperworks, send H coefficients to RadTherm, and run the analysis to better understand radiation and conduction. Most importantly, that analysis can be done for longer transient analysis, but will require much less compute time and resources."
Not only did I not understand what he means by the H coefficients, my wanting to get a CFD understanding coupled with solar radiation was again, unsatisfied. In the mean while I had to finish a presentation so I haven't had the time to try to get some result on the natural ventilation. I would probably need to look into how their solutions work before I can understand if their software would "do the job"
Thank you for letting me know about your work on this. I downloaded the Honeybee_Set EP Natural Ventilation component and made sure that it is allowed, but it does not show up in grasshopper.
You pointed out that "The component (and the corresponding equation) is mostly meant for cases where you have zones with windows that are NOT connected by an air wall (or a larger airflow network)." I wondered if you are suggesting it would be a code violation for zones to be connected by an air wall for fire safety reasons. It would be a violation I guess, like not putting an fiber insulation or some kind of smoke stop between Spandrel panels and the edge of a floor plate would be a code violation for a typical office building.
There is a project by kevin daly architects where you can see a section drawing with what seems like a cfd analysis (could be an illustration)
it was my initial visualization/simulation goals were for a facade design I am working on
1) an average air velocity across a zone at noon, for example, if a passive design strategy like this was used. for this I am guessing cfd is not entirely necessary. probably means that it could be used earlier in a design process, too. This would be more about user comfort.
2) at a later phase, like in detailing facade components, if airflow is indeed as expected for a zone that is connected to an air wall / chimney like feature (and to see if there is a proper mixing of air)
3) and a projection of energy savings, of course.
After seeing a video of simulation cfd I was optimistic, but like I said sim cfd does not take account of solar loading. I think I would probably go ahead start with one zone with sim cfd first, try three zones stacked on top of each other, then try hyperworks and try to factor in solar radiation.
For analyzing multiple zones on different levels, being able to add a chimney would be especially useful, I think. Having said that, I don't have a lot of experience of using honeybee except for the daylight component so it would take some time for me to understand the components.
I hope some of the information here is useful for you. after all, both sim cfd and hyperworks are commercial softwares and somewhat different than the e plus project you are working on, I guess but still trying to address a similar problem.
so.. in cased you missed it I was asking I downloaded the Honeybee_Set EP Natural Ventilation component and made sure that it is allowed and placed in the user object foler, but it does not show up in grasshopper. what could be the reason?
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option, after downloading check if .ghuser files are blocked (right click -> "Properties" and select "Unblock"). Then paste them in File->Special Folders->User Object Folder. You can download the example files from here. They act in similar way, Ladybug Photovoltaics components do: we pick a surface, and get an answer to a question: "How much thermal energy, for a certain number of persons can my roof, building facade... generate if I would populate them with Solar Water Heating collectors"? This information can then be used to cover domestic hot water, space heating or space cooling loads:
Components enable setting specific details of the system, or using simplified ones. They cover analysis of domestic hot water load, final performance of the SWH system, its embodied energy, energy value, consumption, emissions... And finding optimal system and storage size. By Dr. Chengchu Yan and Djordje Spasic, with invaluable support of Dr. Willian Beckman, Dr. Jason M. Keith, Jeff Maguire, Nicolas DiOrio, Niraj Palsule, Sargon George Ishaya and Craig Christensen. Hope you will enjoy using the components! References: 1) Calculation of delivered energy: Solar Engineering of Thermal Processes, John Wiley and Sons, J. Duffie, W. Beckman, 4th ed., 2013. Technical Manual for the SAM Solar Water Heating Model, NREL, N. DiOrio, C. Christensen, J. Burch, A. Dobos, 2014. A simplified method for optimal design of solar water heating systems based on life-cycle energy analysis, Renewable Energy journal, Yan, Wang, Ma, Shi, Vol 74, Feb 2015
2) Domestic hot water load: Modeling patterns of hot water use in households, Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Lutz, Liu, McMahon, Dunham, Shown, McGrue; Nov 1996. ASHRAE 2003 Applications Handbook (SI), Chapter 49, Service water heating
3) Mains water temperature Residential alternative calculation method reference manual, California energy commission, June 2013. Development of an Energy Savings Benchmark for All Residential End-Uses, NREL, August 2004. Solar water heating project analysis chapter, Minister of Natural Resources Canada, 2004.
4) Pipe diameters and pump power: Planning & Installing Solar Thermal Systems, Earthscan, 2nd edition
5) Sun postion and POA irradiance, the same as for Ladybug Photovoltaics (Michalsky (1988), diffuse irradiance by Perez (1990), ground reflected irradiance by Liu, Jordan (1963))
6) Optimal system and storage tank size: A simplified method for optimal design of solar water heating systems based on life-cycle energy analysis, Renewable Energy journal, Yan, Wang, Ma, Shi, Vol 74, Feb 2015.…
y anyway ;))
Since 2014 i begun to get back into the construction biz for some dozen main reasons, one of them being the highly increased availability of this kind of software "power", and robotics.
first project ended by 1stQ 2015 was focused on the development of a parametric block for construction. (almost sure the first parametric product designed in Uruguay, and probably one of the few first of this kind globally...)
Far from being a complicated model. In fact the standard model is extremely simple, key thing is that is fully parametric...
dimensions, materials, textures, colors... and so on
second key thing is that the main common component of the blocks (an EPS core) is robotically machined...
the blocks are the base of a construction system (oriented mainly - though not restricted only - to residential buildings) that
- is based on digital models, tendentially to be used in parametric models of buidings
- lab tested to prove to be 1.5 times as compression resistant than traditional bricks and blocks. (autoportability up to two stories buildings)
- has recently proved (due to size) to be 300% more efficient than the classic and 200% more efficient than steel frame in (our country official figures)
check it out here
--
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1TRxxgF_sEnQnZrTkZGbUx3cmM/view
--
- and it's aimed to be mass produced and handled by robots...
this project ended on 1H 2016
and i filed 4 patents in the process.
3 of them of mechanical devices designed as extensions for a cnc machine i own
and the fourth (
the patent related specifically with the blocks ) included a dozen of innovations (believe me...i have almost 15 yrs in the biz, and are coool stuff...)
along the project I've been working with inventor, even knowing in advance it will lack the kind of features I wanted to program many things... (lisp, VB, etc.... all same species of -prehistoric - animals) to leverage the tool to the sky - and far beyond... -
but was an alternative valid by that time because it allows the implementation of some form of parametric models, had a local representative and some supposedly skilled guys in the neibourhood....
but life is hard... and none of the latter two rendered me any significant help
so I had to take the tour myself...
- mind i never regret to do things that others cant -
and finish what i start
this one was a great project for many figures... and ended with more results than the ones commited to accomplish...
... some more history here ....
then because of a customer who brought a ZHA project ! to quote..., I crossed with rhino, and then met GH again to notice to my great joy and pleasure, in what kind of animal it had developed...
since money talks I'm investing hard on getting up to the expectations, and beyond as i usually do...
and thats how we met..
2017-2018 it's the time frame to build two robots. first one is a prototype to handle the k-nano blocks in the production process, delivery AND at the construction site ( a "smart crane" we nicknamed...)
the other one is the first prototype of robot to assist in the fabrication (smart blocker we called it to be creative ! ;))
then by 2018-2019 i'll be making a "kinda contour crafter" machine to complete the pie :) (you'll be interested on this..)
i guess you already know what all this has to do with GH...
i already have all the components i can imagine to do almost all i ever wanted to do in relation to this set of projects
but in almost a single tool !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i can design, animate, render, optimize, simulate and even robotic simulate..
so, i have to ask...
is there a chance you might be interested in helping us in some projects we are starting on march and june 2017 (8 and no more than 18 months of duration respectively) ?
sent you a friend request, for the case you might be interested to continue by e-mail...
in any case many thanks for your help and inspiration !
best regards !
long happy marriage, and large figures bank account !
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rtitions." (http://wias-berlin.de/software/index.jsp?id=TetGen&lang=1)
To continue with my wrapping career, TetRhino (or Tetrino) is a .NET wrapper for the well-known and pretty amazing TetGen mesh tetrahedralization program. It provides one new GH component for discretizing or remeshing objects using TetGen. Basic tetrahedralization functionality is exposed with a few different output types that can be controlled. At the moment, the only control for tetrahedra sizes is the minimum ratio, which is controlled by a slider. This is hardcoded to always be above 1.0-1.1, as it is very easy to generate a LOT of data (and crash)...
The libs are divided again into different modules to allow flexibility and fun with or without Rhino and GH, so have fun. All 4 libs should be placed in a folder (maybe called 'tetgen') in your GH libraries folder. Remember to unblock.
Once again, the libs are provided as-is, with no guarantee of support for now, as I use them internally and do not intend to develop this into a shiny, polished plug-in. If there is enough interest, I can tidy up the code-base and upload it somewhere if someone more savvy than me wants to play.
TetgenGH.gha - Grasshopper assembly which adds the 'Tetrahedralize' component to Mesh -> Triangulation.
TetgenRC.dll - RhinoCommon interface to the Tetgen wrapper.
TetgenSharp.dll - dotNET wrapper for Tetgen.
TetgenWrapper.dll - Actual wrapper for Tetgen.
Obviously, credit where credit is due for this excellent and tiny piece of software:
"The development of TetGen is executed at the Weierstrass Institute for Applied Analysis and Stochastics in the research group of Numerical Mathematics and Scientific Computing." See http://wias-berlin.de/software/index.jsp?id=TetGen&lang=1 for more details about TetGen.
To wrap up, some notes about the inputs:
These are the possible integer Flags (F) values and resultant outputs for the GH component:
0 - Output M yields a closed boundary mesh. Useful for simply remeshing your input mesh.
1 - Output M yields a list of tetra meshes.
2 - Output I yields a DataTree of tetra indices, grouped in lists of 4. Output P yields a list of points to which the tetra indices correspond.
3 - Output I yields a DataTree of edge indices, grouped in lists of 2. Output P yields a list of points to which the edge indices correspond. Useful for lots of things, very easy to create lines from this to plug into K2 or something for some ropey FEA (or not so ropey!) ;)
As this component can potentially create a LOT of data, especially with dense meshes, care should be taken with the MinRatio (R) input. This will try to constrain the tetra to be more or less elongated, which also means that the lower this value gets, the more tetra need to be added to satisfy this constraint. Start with very high values and lower them until satisfactory.
Hopefully shouldn't be an issue, but it's possible that you need the 2015 Microsoft C++ Redistributable.
Happy tetrahedralizing...
UPDATE: The tetgen.zip has been updated with some fixes.
UPDATE2: This is now available on Food4Rhino: http://www.food4rhino.com/app/tetrino
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Added by Tom Svilans at 1:27am on October 24, 2017
re are major changes and enhancements.
HONEYBEE
More Flexible Workflow - Many small modifications were made to support a more flexible workflow, such as the ability to separate a zone created with masses2Zones into editable HBSrfs that can be recombined. For the energy components, it is now possible to plug custom constructions directly into the components that set the zone constructions without writing them first into the library. For the daylighting components it is now possible to change all of the materials of specific surface types at once.
Support for Complex Geometry - Many small bugs for complex geometry have been fixed including the ability to import energy results correctly for curved NURBS surfaces as well as unconventional window configurations. Also, the intersectMasses component now almost always succeeds in splitting all of the surfaces of adjacent zones, no matter how complex the intersection is.
Automatic Download Issues Fixed - Many users who faced issues with not having “gendaymtx.exe” or who had trouble syncing with our github know that we faced an issue with automatic background downloads.
Air Walls - Honeybee EnergyPlus models now officially support air walls (or virtual partitions) in a basic implementation. Now, any time that you use the air wall construction or set a surface type to “air wall,” the air between adjacent zones will be automatically mixed. At present, this mixing is just a constant flow based on the surface area between zones connected by air walls multiplied by an adjustable “flow factor.” It is important to stress that this basic air mixing is not with the EnergyPlus Airflow Network, although the groundwork laid in this release will eventually allow for the implementation of the Airflow Network in future releases. As such, this present air mixing is only suitable for multi-zone conditions where there is not significant buoyancy-driven flow between zones.
Natural Ventilation - To go along with the new potential introduced by air walls, there has been a basic implementation of EnergyPlus’s natural ventilation objects in a new component called “Set EP Airflow”. The current setup allows for three possible types of natural ventilation: 1) natural ventilation through windows (with auto-calculated flow based on window area, outdoor wind speed/direction, and stack effects), 2) custom wind and stack objects that can be used to model things such as chimneys off of single zones, and 3) constant, fan-driven natural ventilation.
Additional Thermal Mass - The capability to add additional thermal mass to zones has been added. This is useful for factoring in the mass of indoor furniture or heavy interior objects such as chimneys.
New Utility Components - Abraham has added a couple of useful components to help calculate lighting loads based on bulb types and target lighting levels as well as a converter from ACH to the m3/s-m2 that the other HB components accept. Along this vein, there is also a component for adding in the resistance of Air Films to HB constructions.
Improved and Editable Ideal Air Loads System - The EnergyPlus Ideal Air System now goes through an automatic sizing period at the start of the simulation based on the extreme weeks of the weather file. Furthermore, the ability to adjust many of the parameters of the ideal air loads system have been added with a new “Set Ideal Air Loads Parameters” component. The component allows you to add in heat recovery, air side economizers and demand-controlled ventilation.
OpenStudio Export Update - The OpenStudio workflow is still largely under development but this release includes a version with a working VAV and PTHP system template for those curious with experimenting. Note that not all of the new features available for the basic “Run Energy Simulation” component are available for the OpenStudio component (such as air walls, natural ventilation, or additional thermal mass).
Microclimate/Indoor Comfort Maps - Blossoming from initial experiments with the radiant temperature map, a workflow for looking into sub-zone microclimate and indoor comfort has been initiated. All components for this are presently under the Honeybee WIP tab but, over the next month, they will be completing their development phase and moving into the rest of the tabs. If you are interested in testing when they are ready, please let Chris know. For a teaser video of the intended capabilities, see this video: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNylb42FPIc&list=UUc6HWbF4UtdKdjbZ2tvwiCQ)
LADYBUG
Monthly Bar Chart - After much demand from multiple parties, a new component to create monthly bar and line charts has been added. The component is particularly useful for plotting the outputs of the “Average Data” component like monthly EPW data or averaged monthly-per hour data. It also supports daily data and any type of Energy simulation results.
Wind Profile - To go along with the new capabilities of natural ventilation in Honeybee, Ladybug now has a fully fleshed-out Wind Profile component that allows you to visualize how wind speed changes with height in relation to your building geometry. The component is geared to understanding the conditions of prevailing wind and will be useful in the future for setting up CFD models. Credit goes to Djordje Spasic for adding in all of the new capabilities. In a similar vein, the appearance of the wind rose has also been improved thanks to suggestions from Alejandra Menchaca.
Faster Solar Adjusted Temperature - Thanks to the SolarCal method from the Center for the Built Environment at UC Berkeley (http://escholarship.org/uc/item/89m1h2dg), the solar adjusted temperature component now includes an option for a much faster calculation that produces results that are very close to those originally obtained with the genCumSky component. Instead of using the cumulative sky, the component can now accept the direct and diffuse radiation from the ImportEPW component. Over a whole year, this essentially takes a calculation that used to be a half-hour and shrinks it down to 10 seconds. Thanks again to those at UC Berkeley for keeping their work open source!
Instructions - Last but not the least, [It took me almost two years to understand this but finally] we have a text file that describes the installation step by step and is way easier to modify than a video. You can find it in the zip file. Credit goes to Chris!
We also want to welcome Anton, Patrick and Sandeep to the team. Anton has kicked off his development by working on a component to import and visualize epw ground temperature data and he will be continuing to develop components to bring in reliable precipitation data to Ladybug. With this basis, he will continue to implement Honeybee components for ground heat storage, earth tubes, rain collection and hot water systems. Patrick and Sandeep are working on integration of Honeybee to Energy Performance Calculator.
As always let us know your comments and suggestions.
Enjoy!…