A question about view factor calculations in EnergyPlus

asked 2024-09-04 10:18:21 -0500

rhodria's avatar

updated 2024-09-04 10:36:14 -0500

Aaron Boranian's avatar

Hi everyone,

I have a building model with a column heater in the middle of the room. This heater blocks the radiative heat exchange between two opposite walls. There are two ways to model it: 1) Using EnergyPlus' default view factors, 2) Using user-defined view factors.

  1. If I use the default option, how will EnergyPlus calculate the view factors? I know EnergyPlus uses the ratio of the area of a surface to the total area of all receiving surfaces as the view factor. However, if there is a block in the middle, how will EnergyPlus calculate this?

  2. If I use user-defined view factors, in each ZoneProperty:UserViewFactors:BySuraceName object, you can input at most 500 view factors. Since my model has a complicated wall composition, I will have more than 500 view factors. How should I handle this?

Thanks a lot!

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Comments

"you can input at most 500 view factors" -- I could be wrong, but I think EnergyPlus allows unlimited view factors. You just can't enter more than 500 through the IDF Editor.

shorowit's avatar shorowit  ( 2024-09-05 16:31:02 -0500 )edit
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