sim.connections {heR.Simulation}R Documentation

Simulate Connection Types Between House Zones

Description

Simulate time-dependent "connections" between rooms of a house, between rooms and the outdoors, and between rooms and a central system, using binary scenario specifications for room-specific door, window, central air, exhaust, and recirculation configurations.

Usage

sim.connections(house, ntimes = 1, ...)

Arguments

house a "house" object as returned by the sim.house function
ntimes the number of different consecutive time periods over which connections will be simulated, defaulting to just a single time period
... a named list of one or more vectors containing binary scenario specifications (i.e., consisting of 1's and 0's), specifying on/off conditions for internal (int), external (ext), central mechanical ventilation (mech), local exhaust ventilation (exh), and local recirculation (rec) connection types. Each vector must be equal in length to the total number of rooms in the house. For any specification that is not given, default values corresponding to "no connection" will be assigned.

Details

The binary scenario specifications are vectors for each type of connection and are specified as a key-value pairs under the ... argument. For example, for a 5-room house where all windows are closed, all interior doors are open, and all other connections are off, the scenario specifications would be as follows:

Internal Doors int c(1,1,1,1,1)
External Windows ext c(0,0,0,0,0)
Mechanical Ventilation mech c(0,0,0,0,0)
Exhaust Ventilation exh c(0,0,0,0,0)
Recirculation rec c(0,0,0,0,0)

To turn ``on'' connections, such as opening windows or allowing central air into a room, one would enter 1's into the appropriate vector elements. In general, external switches correspond to whether windows are open or closed, internal switches correspond to whether the hallway door for the room is open, or whether a ventilation or recirculation fan is operative for that room or not. See below for the particular rules for interpreting ``on'' values for rooms that don't have a direct connection to a hallway or have only a single air return or supply.

This function considers a wide range of possible room types, including the following, which are the basic types generated by the sim.house function:

These basic types of rooms can also be combined into multi-use rooms, including:

The ``main'' rooms are defined as separate or multi-use rooms containing KIT, DIN, LIV, AUX, and BED. The ``supplementary'' rooms are defined as HALL, BATH, LAUN, BASE, and GAR. There can be multiple instances of AUX, HALL, and BATH.

We assign connections for room types in a general way, not assuming the rooms are pre-organized in any order except by floor.

The possible types (or ``levels'') of connection are:

The following are rules for assigning connections between different types of rooms:

  1. Floors with more than one main room will have a hallway.
  2. Separate room types containing KIT, LIV, AUX, BED are attached to an existing hall on that floor by a door and are not connected to each other. DIN by itself will not be attached to hallway, except if it is a multi-room such as KIT-DIN or KIT-DIN-LIV.
  3. A separate room containing KIT is attached by an open doorway to a separate room containing DIN.
  4. A separate room containing DIN is attached by an open doorway to a separate room containing LIV.
  5. Separate rooms containing KIT or LIV are *not* attached by an open doorway.
  6. GAR is attached to HALL or single room if there is no HALL.
  7. LAUN is attached to KIT, if KIT is a separate room on the same floor (ie first floor) or to a room containing KIT if there is only a single room on the floor. Otherwise it is attached to BATH on the same floor if there is only a single BATH, or to HALL on the same floor if there is more than one BATH in the house.
  8. BATH is attached to a BED on the same floor; otherwise, if no BED or room containing BED, it is attached to HALL. We just deal with what comes in as part of `house' and expect that the user has analyzed house and specified the appropriate scenario for each non-hall room in the order that they appear on each floor.
  9. Hallways on different floors are considered different rooms connected via an "open doorway" (i.e., the stairway)

The following are rules for connecting rooms to the central air system and the outdoors:

  1. Air return for the central mechanical ventilation is from the bottom floor hallway, or living room if there is no hallway. No other returns exist. If no bottom hallway, then there is only a single room on the bottom floor and we put the return there.
  2. Air intake is from every room, except hallways/stairways
  3. All rooms besides hallways/stairways are considered to have a connection to the outdoors (i.e., a non-zero external connection).

The binary scenario specifications apply to all rooms in the house. They designate connections to hallways for non-hall rooms, connection to an attached room for non-hall rooms not attached to hallways, and connection to upper halls/rooms on adjacent floors for halls/single-room-floors. The specification for halls and single-room-floors applies to connection to the next higher floor. The specification for the highest floor is ignored (maybe the attic?). We do not allow for rooms to be both attached to a hallway and another room unless there are two adjacent single-room floors. All rooms can have external connections, even halls, and ventilation connections.

Value

A "connections" list object with the following components:

int internal connection list with matrix components for each room's connection with the other rooms (rows) at a series of times (columns)
ext external connection matrix for room connections (rows) with the outdoors at a series of times (columns)
mech connection matrix of each room to the mechanical ventilation system (rows) at a series of times (columns)
exh exhaust ventilation matrix for each room's extra connectionto the outdoors (rows) at a series of times (columns)
rec matrix of recirculation connections of each room with itself (rows) at a series of times (columns)


These component matrices are intended to be used as direct input into the sim.flows function, which simulates house air flows at different times.

Author(s)

Neil Klepeis

See Also

This function takes input in the form of a "house" object produced by the sim.house function.

The connection types generated by this function for different house-related zones are intended to be used as direct input into the sim.flows function.

[Package heR.Simulation version 0.0.3 Index]