Question-and-Answer Resource for the Building Energy Modeling Community
Get started with the Help page
Ask Your Question

Revision history [back]

Integral of "Zone Air Heat Balance Air Energy Storage Rate" does not correspond to "Zone Mean Air Temperature"

Hello everyone,

I am developing a simplified thermal model for one building (RC model), and, for the estimation of thermal capacitances, I wanted to use the Energy Storage Rate to estimate the zone air capacitance more accurately. However, once I extracted the data from the simulation and tried integrating the Air Energy Storage Rate (to get a variable corresponding to the temperature) per following equations:

$Q_{sto}^{air} = C_{air} * {d T_{air}}/{dt}$

$T_{air} \mid_{t} = 1/C_{air} * \int_{0}^{t} { Q_{sto}^{air}*dt } + T_{air} \mid_{t=0} $

I discovered that there's a strange component in the Energy Storage Rate that makes the integral drift away (you can check it on this graph). I have found a way to remove this component (by removing the drift on a daily basis and fitting the signal for a constant capacitance over the whole year), but I would still like to know what is causing this issue (the physical meaning of that component). Does anybody have any clue?

I have tried reducing the simulation time step even to 1 minute, but, unfortunately, that did not resolve the issue.

Thank you.

Kind regards, Milan

Integral of "Zone Air Heat Balance Air Energy Storage Rate" does not correspond to "Zone Mean Air Temperature"

Hello everyone,

I am developing a simplified thermal model for one building (RC model), and, for the estimation of thermal capacitances, I wanted to use the Energy Storage Rate to estimate the zone air capacitance more accurately. However, once I extracted the data from the simulation and tried integrating the Air Energy Storage Rate (to get a variable corresponding to the temperature) per following equations:

$Q_{sto}^{air} = C_{air} * {d T_{air}}/{dt}$

$T_{air} \mid_{t} = 1/C_{air} * \int_{0}^{t} { Q_{sto}^{air}*dt } + T_{air} \mid_{t=0} $

I discovered that there's a strange component in the Energy Storage Rate that makes the integral drift away (you can check it on this graph). I have found a way to remove this component (by removing the drift on a daily basis and fitting the signal for a constant capacitance over the whole year), but I would still like to know what is causing this issue (the physical meaning of that component). Does anybody have any clue?

I have tried reducing the simulation time step even to 1 minute, but, unfortunately, that did not resolve the issue.

Thank you.

Kind regards, Milan

Integral of "Zone Air Heat Balance Air Energy Storage Rate" does not correspond to "Zone Mean Air Temperature"

Hello everyone,

I am developing a simplified thermal model for one building (RC model), and, for the estimation of thermal capacitances, I wanted to use the Energy Storage Rate to estimate the zone air capacitance more accurately. However, once I extracted the data from the simulation and tried integrating the Air Energy Storage Rate (to get a variable corresponding to the temperature) per following equations:

$Q_{sto}^{air} = C_{air} * {d T_{air}}/{dt}$

$T_{air} \mid_{t} = 1/C_{air} * \int_{0}^{t} { Q_{sto}^{air}*dt } + T_{air} \mid_{t=0} $

I discovered that there's a strange component in the Energy Storage Rate that makes the integral drift away (you can check it on this graph). I have found a way to remove this component (by removing the drift on a daily basis and fitting the signal for a constant capacitance over the whole year), but I would still like to know what is causing this issue (the physical meaning of that component). Does anybody have any clue?

I have tried reducing the simulation time step even to 1 minute, but, unfortunately, that did not resolve the issue.

Thank you.

Kind regards, Milan