any thoughts about simulating solar radiation/shading from Finite Element Method?
I want to simulate the building thermal response in a day's environment including solar radiation, outside air convection and inside air convection and radiation from Finite Element Software like Abaqus. It is really hard to realize the movable solar radiation and shades. Do you guys have any thoughts on that? And what about the theory behind solar radiation and shading from EnergyPlus which may be useful for me to understand the way of realizing in FEM? Thanks
Are you asking about using solar radiation and shading calculations from EnergyPlus as inputs to a finite element software for the remaining heat transfer calculations? That would be cosimulation -- using two simulation tools in parallel that share information between them. A common example is EnergyPlus + Modelica through the Building Controls Virtual Test Bed (BCVTB).
Yes. Is that possible to use Abaqus+EnergyPlus through BCVTB?
I'm pretty sure that you wouldn't use BCVTB for that, I was just using that as one example of EnergyPlus cosimulating with another tool. I've added an answer below for more details.