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Modeling Adjacent Walls with Different Materials

asked 1 year ago

Zakaria's avatar

updated 1 year ago

Hello Community,

I'm encountering a challenge while modeling two zones where the adjacent walls have different materials. I've set the boundary conditions as surface conditions, but upon running the simulation, I receive an error indicating that the adjacent walls do not have the same materials. I also found out that the adjacent walls must have the same number of layers and the same surface area.

Could someone please advise on how to resolve this problem? Is there a specific approach or workaround that I might be overlooking? And please correct me if I'm wrong.

Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

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answered 1 year ago

@Zakaria, interzone walls must indeed share the same vertices (in reverse order from each other), and their constructions must share the same number of layers. Yet as stated here, both constructions must also share the same multilayered materials (in reverse order from each other if asymmetrical), e.g.:

Wall A

  • layer 1: 16mm cement board
  • layer 2: 140mm mineral wool insulation
  • layer 3: 13mm gypsum board

Wall B

  • layer 1: 13mm gypsum board
  • layer 2: 140mm mineral wool insulation
  • layer 3: 16mm cement board
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answered 1 year ago

bentan's avatar

Have you try checking [this]?(https://unmethours.com/questio...

I don’t think it will be possible for the adjacent wall to have different materials, the adjacency will not be solved.

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Agree. It's not 100% clear from the original question whether @Zakaria intentionally wants dissimilar materials between adjacent surface constructions (not possible IMO), or if the error is unintentional.

Denis Bourgeois's avatar Denis Bourgeois  ( 1 year ago )

Dear Denis Bourgeois,

Thank you for your answer.

My question is based on an old one (here) where I want to model an indoor walk-in freezer (walk-in within a construction). You have noticed the question that EnergyPlus doesn't like cutouts, and one solution is to model the walk-in construction surrounded by the other zones here. That is why I want to define different materials for the adjacent wall.

Zakaria's avatar Zakaria  ( 1 year ago )

@Zakaria, based on the layout you shared, each perimeter zone should have 1x wall (adjacent to the "Walk-in Zone") referencing a 2-layer construction: (1) "foam", then (2) "brick" (from outside to inside). The "Walk-in Zone" should have 4x walls referencing another construction: (1) "brick", then (2) "foam".

Denis Bourgeois's avatar Denis Bourgeois  ( 1 year ago )

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Asked: 1 year ago

Seen: 275 times

Last updated: 16 hours ago