Prediction of the thermal behaviour of an office building using TRNSYS with proposal and evaluation of improvement actions.

Abstract

The most important decisions that affect the thermal behaviour of buildings are taken in the initial stages of design. Design evaluation may be supported by the results of building simulation. The aim of this paper is to predict the thermal behaviour of an office building with TRNSYS and to propose architectonical and management improvement actions. These improvements are formulated to solve one design problem of this building. The results shows that models in TRNSYS are a good system to simulate the reality and they can represent the different scenarios to evaluate energy and economic savings in short period of time and without spend the money. The best solutions are the ones who are tough for the all year with all the conditions, analyzing the life cycle and the savings in a medium-long period of time; it can reach an energy saving of 33%. The calculations show that it’s possible to reduce 33% of cooling energy with free-cooling ventilation and an energy saving of 20% increasing 1ºC the comfort temperature during summer.