Thermal comfort assessment of a small house in Portugal using energyplus and ansys fluent

Abstract

According to the European Union Directive 2018/844, almost 50% of the final energy consumption is used in heating and cooling processes, whereas, of these, 80% are used in the buildings. Thus, to accomplish the proposed energy and climate objectives for 2050, priority has to be given to energy efficiency as well as the deployment of renewable energies in buildings. Most thermal modeling of buildings is carried out through computational dynamic simulation programs. The main objective of this paper is to compare the thermal analyses performed by two programs, EnergyPlus and Ansys Fluent. For this, the model of a simplified building was created, with its thermal surroundings, envelope characteristics, and technical systems. In the model, the insulation of the building was not considered, in order to better compare both software under study. The objective is to verify if two different philosophy software have similar results and validate them. Finally, the temperature and PMV results obtained from EnergyPlus are compared with the results of Ansys Fluent. There was a small deviation for both software, with a PMV value of -1.10 for the EnergyPlus and for -1.12 Fluent. The PMV distribution was compared with K–S test that showed no significant statistical differences.