Application of integrated environmental solutions software for thermal simulation in a courtyard residential building

Abstract

The study was concerned with validating the suitability of IES-VE Software for simulation of indoor micro-climatic variables such as the air temperature and relative humidity in a fully enclosed courtyard residential building in Kafanchan. Two Hobo Weather Data Logger (HWDL) were instrumental during the one-day data collection in the test-room and outdoor environments of the selected case-study building. The data were obtained through field measurement and compared with the IES-VE simulated results. The findings show the minimum and maximum percentage discrepancy between the simulation and field measurements results of the indoor (test-room) and outdoor (environment) as 3.3%, 4.9% and 2.7%, 4.3% for air temperature, while 4.5%, 14.3% and 1.9%, 1.9% for relative humidity respectively. The percentage discrepancies were less than 0-20%. Also, the R² values were 1, 1, 0.99 and 0.96 respectively. Consequently, it is concluded that the IES-VE software is applicable for further simulation experiments of indoor air temperature and relative humidity in a fully enclosed courtyard residential building in Kafanchan. The software is recommended for Architects to adopt in professional practice, in order to enable prediction of building microclimatic performance, from onset.

Keywords: IES-VE Software, Validation, Air Temperature, Relative Humidity