An indoor–outdoor building energy simulator to study urban modification effects on building energy use – Model description and validation

While there have been significant advances in energy modeling of individual buildings and urban canopies, more sophisticated and at the same time more efficient models are needed to understand the thermal interaction between buildings and their surroundings. In particular to evaluate policy alternatives it is of interest how building makeup, canyon geometry, weather conditions, and their combination modify heat transfer in the urban area. The Temperature of Urban Facets Indoor–Outdoor Building Energy Simulator (TUF-IOBES) is a building-to-canopy model that simulates indoor and outdoor building surface temperatures and heat fluxes in an urban area to estimate cooling/heating loads and energy use in buildings. The indoor and outdoor energy balance processes are dynamically coupled taking into account real weather conditions, indoor heat sources, building and urban material properties, composition of the building envelope (e.g. windows, insulation), and HVAC equipment. TUF-IOBES is also capable of simulating effects of the waste heat from air-conditioning systems on urban canopy air temperature. TUF-IOBES transient heat conduction is validated against an analytical solution and multi-model intercomparions for annual and daily cooling and heating loads are conducted. An application of TUF-IOBES to study the impact of different pavements (concrete and asphalt) on building energy use is also presented.

► TUF-IOBES is a novel 3D fully-coupled indoor–outdoor building energy simulator.
► Validations are performed against analytical and simulation results.
► TUF-IOBES quantifies the interaction between urban geometry, materials and buildings.
► Impacts on building energy use can be quantified.