Question-and-Answer Resource for the Building Energy Modeling Community
 | 1 | initial version |
EnergyPlus uses Material objects to define each opaque layer of construction material (brick, dry wall, etc.). You then use Construction objects to define how material layers are combined to create assemblies (roofs, walls, floors, windows, etc.).
The EnergyPlus installation includes a data set file (C:\EnergyPlusV9-3-0\DataSets\ASHRAE_2005_HOF_Materials.idf for EnergyPlus v9.3) that contains common construction materials and their heat transfer properties defined in Chapters 25 and 30 of the ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals. These are already defined as Material objects, so you can copy from this data set IDF and paste into your project IDF. This data set IDF also contains Construction objects that represent common construction assemblies using these common construction materials.
You can read more details about material layer inputs in posts here and here.
