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I'm wondering if the Slab preprocessor is useful in predicting accurate GS-temperature of the non-insulated ground surfaces

I'd say yes. Slab is accurate. Even if you don't have a layer in the slab that is specifically meant for providing insulation, concrete still provides some insulation and Slab will run.

And how can I use it?

That is not as easy to answer. Slab is quite old, and I think it's still written in Fortran.

Your best bet is to use the Slab objects from an example file with a similar building to yours. You can find example idf files that use slab objects from this file in the energyplus example files folder.

If you really want to dig into Slab, you can look in the Input Output Reference and Auxiliary Programs documentation pdfs. However, you can see from the screenshot of the object links file that some of the Slab objects no longer have example files. I've had great difficulty trying to figure out how to use Slab in the past. I think Slab has gotten so old at this point that, while it works and is accurate, the people who wrote the code, and thus truly understood all the Slab objects, are retired. Good luck!

I'm wondering if the Slab preprocessor is useful in predicting accurate GS-temperature of the non-insulated ground surfaces

I'd say yes. Slab is accurate. Even if you don't have a layer in the slab that is specifically meant for providing insulation, concrete still provides some insulation and Slab will run.

And how can I use it?

That is not as easy to answer. Slab is quite old, and I think it's still written in Fortran.

Your best bet is to use the Slab objects from an example file with a similar building to yours. You can find example idf files that use slab objects from this file in the energyplus example files folder.

If you really want to dig into Slab, you can look in the Input Output Reference and Auxiliary Programs documentation pdfs. However, as you can see from the screenshot of the object links file that some of the Slab objects no longer have example files. I've had great difficulty trying to figure out how to use Slab in the past. I think Slab has gotten so old at this point that, while it works and is accurate, the people who wrote the code, and thus truly understood all the Slab objects, are retired. Good luck!

I'm wondering if the Slab preprocessor is useful in predicting accurate GS-temperature of the non-insulated ground surfaces

I'd say yes. Slab is accurate. Even if you don't have a layer in the slab that is specifically meant for providing insulation, concrete still provides some insulation and Slab will run.

And how can I use it?

That is not as easy to answer. Slab is quite old, and I think it's still written in Fortran.

Your best bet is to use the Slab objects from an example file with a similar building to yours. You can find example idf files that use slab objects from this file in the energyplus example files folder.

If you really want to dig into Slab, you can look in the Input Output Reference and Auxiliary Programs documentation pdfs. However, as you can see from the screenshot of the object links file that file, some of the Slab objects no longer have example files. I've had great difficulty trying to figure out how to use Slab in the past. I think Slab has gotten so old at this point that, while it works and is accurate, the people who wrote the code, and thus truly understood all the Slab objects, are retired. Good luck!

I'm wondering if the Slab preprocessor is useful in predicting accurate GS-temperature of the non-insulated ground surfaces

I'd say yes. Slab is accurate. Even if you don't have a layer in the slab that is specifically meant for providing insulation, concrete still provides some insulation and Slab will run.

And how can I use it?

That is not as easy to answer. Slab is quite old, and I think it's still written in Fortran.

Your best bet is to use the Slab objects from an example file with a similar building to yours. You can find example idf files that use slab objects from this file in the energyplus example files folder.

If you really want to dig into Slab, you can look in the Input Output Reference and Auxiliary Programs documentation pdfs. However, as you can see from the screenshot of the object links file, some of the Slab objects no longer have example files. I've had great difficulty trying to figure out how to use Slab in the past. I think Slab has gotten so old at this point that, while it works and is accurate, the people who wrote the code, and thus truly understood all the Slab objects, are retired. Good luck!

I'm wondering if the Slab preprocessor is useful in predicting accurate GS-temperature of the non-insulated ground surfaces

I'd say yes. Slab is accurate. Even if you don't have a layer in the slab that is specifically meant for providing insulation, concrete still provides some insulation and Slab will run.

And how can I use it?

That is not as easy to answer. Slab is quite old, and I think it's still written in Fortran.

Your best bet is to use the Slab objects from an example file with a similar building to yours. You can find example idf files that use slab objects from this file in the energyplus example files folder.

If you really want to dig into Slab, you can look in the Input Output Reference and Auxiliary Programs documentation pdfs. However, as you can see from the screenshot of the object links file, some of the Slab objects no longer have example files. I've had great difficulty trying to figure out how to use Slab in the past. I think Slab has gotten so old at this point that, while it works and is accurate, the people who wrote the code, and thus truly understood all the Slab objects, are retired. Good luck!


Post Script
I found more ground temperature modeling objects.

The SITE:GROUNDDOMAIN:BASEMENT, SITE:GROUNDDOMAIN:SLAB, and related objects don't seem to be part of the Slab or Basement preprocessors. I ran the example files and I think they operate during the energyplus simulation, rather than the preprocessors which calculate the Site:GroundTemperature:BuildingSurface object and then energyplus runs.