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Error "Construction Name is required but was blank"

asked 9 years ago

petherington's avatar

updated 8 years ago

I have created custom constructions and materials as I work in NZ and none of the standard libraries elements will work for me, but when I run simulations none of my constructions come through. The only way I can get around this is to manually input all of the surface and sub-surface constructions one by one in SU. This is extremely time consuming. I notice if I drag standard constructions out of the library and drop them into the construction sets EP recognizes them right away. Does anyone have an answer for this?

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Please remember to use appropriate tags in the future :) Using 'openstudio' here will do two things: make it clear that you're talking about openstudio, and allow people who watch the tag 'openstudio' to spot your question more easily.

Julien Marrec's avatar Julien Marrec  ( 9 years ago )

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answered 9 years ago

Couple of things:

  • Constructions need to be assigned somewhere. Take a look at the inheritance diagram

Inheritance diagram

In practice, what you can do for example is to bundle your new constructions in a Construction Set, and apply this construction set to your entire building.

  • Once you've done this there are very classic mistakes that could lead to the EnergyPlus error "Construction Name is required but was blank"
  • Your construction set does not have a construction for one of the surface types that your model has. For example is your have no construction for "doors" in your construction set but your model does have a door.
  • Adiabatic surfaces currently need to have a hard-assigned construction
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@petherington: did that solve your problem? If so, please mark the question as accepted so we can close it.

Julien Marrec's avatar Julien Marrec  ( 9 years ago )
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answered 8 years ago

petherington's avatar

Sort of. I had created a construction set, I did select it in Open Studio, I assigned all of the constructions in Open Studio a construction from that construction set. What I didn't do was select the whole model and then assign the all of the constructions to that Set using the "Set Attributes Tool" in Skecthup. All working now. Cheers, Phil.

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Asked: 9 years ago

Seen: 719 times

Last updated: Apr 17 '16