How detailed should I make my geometry?
I'm modeling a school building in sketchup to simulate in OpenStudio/Energyplus.
Is it feasible to model:
- Every room?
- A group of rooms?
- just one or two big zones in the story?
- Certain type of rooms?
Here are two of the floorplans of the building: https://imgur.com/a/U9t1OXv
I suggest you go over the geometry of the Primary School and Secondary School Prototype models (IDFs). Useful to compare against. Other drivers to consider include fenestration orientation, setpoints, schedules, etc. Otherwise, it really depends on what you're seeking (e.g. monthly GJ use vs daylighting/thermal comfort assessments). Hope this helps.
Hi Denis, thanks for the reply. I've looked at the examples and I saw that I have like twice the amount of spaces purely because the functions of my building aren't neatly ordered (no classrooms straight in a row). But for the rest its almost the same method, I did it a bit more detailed with more type of rooms. The goal of my model is daily energy use and making different configurations of the building to compare with.
Yes, models of actual buildings usually do end up with more spaces/zones than prototypes. From the plans you've linked, there are several instances where similar/adjacent rooms could be grouped together, or at least constitute a single thermal zone. If model size becomes an issue, I suggest avoiding plenums if possible, or even deleting interzone surfaces altogether. The latter is tricky (although reliably carried out if done parametrically), but this can easily cut down the number of wall surfaces by half.