Question-and-Answer Resource for the Building Energy Modeling Community
 | 1 | initial version |
There is nothing special about a tent. It is an on-grade construction.
I can't think of an application where you'd get better results using Site:GroundTemperature than with Kiva. Kiva will perform a real, two-dimensional heat balance between the floor of the tent and the exterior ground. In contrast, the "correct" Site:GroundTemperature to use for this application will be a complete wild guess. With Kiva you can at least get a somewhat reasonable estimate of ground losses with some informed assumptions about the ground properties and using an actual heat balance.
Model the floor surface as a 1-inch (or so) layer of soil (the plastic foil is likely negligible). Model the "foundation wall" as a similarly thin construction of soil with limited depth.
@mdahlhausen is right about the uncertainty in ground conditions, and they are especially important for uninsulated ground surfaces. They are even more important if the tent is heated.
Do the best you can with the information you have and you'll get a much more reasonable solution than approximating the losses as one-dimensional losses to a mysterious ground temperature.
Full disclosure: I wrote Kiva.
