Progetto SIMEA - Automatica - Università degli Studi di Padova

SIMEA Stato dell’arte energetica degli edifici
1.2.28. ESP-r
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Doc.No 20100610.SIMEA.MR.03
Versione 1
General purpose simulation environment which supports an indepth
appraisal of the factors which influence the energy and
environmental performance of buildings. The ESP-r system has been
the subject of sustained developments since 1974 and in 2002
converted to the GNU Public License.
ESP-r has the objective of simulating building performance in a
manner that: a) is realistic and adheres closely to actual physical
systems, b) supports early-through-detailed design stage appraisals,
and c) enables integrated performance assessments in which no single
issue is unduly prominent.
ESP-r attempts to simulate the real world as rigorously as
possible and to a level which is consistent with current best practice in
the international simulation community.
By addressing all aspects simultaneously, ESP-r allows the designer to explore the complex
relationships between a building's form, fabric, air flow, plant and control. ESP-r is based on a finite volume,
conservation approach in which a problem (specified in terms of geometry, construction, operation, leakage
distribution, etc.) is transformed into a set of conservation equations (for energy, mass, momentum, etc.)
which are then integrated at successive time-steps in response to climate, occupant and control system
influences. ESP-r comprises a central Project Manager around which are arranged support databases, a
simulator, various performance assessment tools and a variety of third party applications for CAD,
visualization and report generation.
In keeping with the philosophy of linking ESP-r to other modelling systems, users can now export to
EnergyPlus an ESP-r model with materials, constructions, surfaces (all three and four sided surfaces as well
as those including one window or one door - more complex surfaces are omitted). Boundary condition
attributes are translated and the parent/child relationship between opaque and transparent surfaces
established. The exported models usually pass the EnergyPlus parser with no errors or with minor warnings.
Currently, approximate optical properties are established and schedules are not yet included.
1.2.28.1. Validation/Testing
ESP-r has been extensively validated. See Strachan P A. 2000. 'ESP-r: Summary of Validation
Studies', ESRU Technical Report, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. for more information.
1.2.28.2. Expertise Required
Understanding of thermo-physical processes in buildings, environmental systems and controls.
1.2.28.3. Users
Hundreds of users, primarily in Europe and Asia.
1.2.28.4. Audience
Engineers, researchers, architects, energy consultants.
1.2.28.5. Input
Building geometry can be defined either using CAD tools or in-built facilities. ESP-r is compatible
with the AutoCAD and ECOTECT which can be used to create a building representation of arbitrary
complexity. Models can be exported to other assessments tools such as TSBI3 and Radiance. Constructional