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at which pressure ACH is reported in EP?

asked 2025-04-27 20:59:56 -0500

updated 2025-04-28 09:21:53 -0500

Hi all, I have the ACH rates for tight and leaky houses based on Australian standards. These rates are at 50Pa. I need to add effective leakage area to these houses (using Zone infiltration: effective leakage area). First, I converted the ACH at 50 for both houses to ACH at 4 Pa (as EP accept ACH at 4 Pa). Then, I converted ACH at 4 Pa to ELA value based on ASHRAE calculation. For example, an average ACH of infiltration for a tight house (only by unintentional infiltration) is 6.8 at 50Pa, which is around 1.3 at 4 Pa. The ELA would be around 250 cm² (approximately). I applied 250 cm² for the whole house (divided among zones based on the size percentage), and then when I added infiltration ACH as an output variable to check, it was higher than 1.3; it was around 7. So, the question is, can the output of ACH be at 50 Pa while the input is at 4 Pa in EP? I am so confused about the results!

Thank you so much for the help

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answered 2025-04-28 19:16:07 -0500

(It sounds like you are using the ZoneInfiltration:EffectiveLeakageArea object, as opposed toAirflowNetwork. In that case, EnergyPlus does not explicitly calculate a pressure for each timestep. Rather, it directly calculates infiltration volumetric flow rates (m3/s) from your user inputs, wind speeds, and outdoor temperatures. The ACH output that it also provides is simply converted from the volumetric flow rate and the zone volume.)

So to your question, the calculated flow rates would correspond to a pressure closer to 4 Pa (often used as an assumed annual-average natural pressure) as opposed to 50 Pa (the pressure during a blower door test). I think you are correctly interpreting the output. Hard to say why your results are off by a factor of ~5, you should double check the zone volume, height, terrain, stack/wind coefficients, etc. You should probably also output the infiltration as volumetric flow rate directly. If you still can't figure it out, you might need to provide your IDF file for someone to take a look.

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Thank you so much! Your response was very helpful. On that note, if I apply an effective leakage area using the airflow network, which does not have the input of stack and wind coefficients, the input is merely the ELA, Reference pressure, which is 4 by default. Should I worry then about these coefficients when I use AFN?

wala.beliah@research.uwa.edu.au's avatar wala.beliah@research.uwa.edu.au  ( 2025-05-04 20:23:56 -0500 )edit

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Asked: 2025-04-27 20:59:56 -0500

Seen: 84 times

Last updated: Apr 28