The adaptive simulation of convective heat transfer at internal building surfaces

A flow responsive algorithm was devised and implemented within the ESP-r simulation program to advance the modelling of convective heat transfer at internal building surfaces. Empirical methods were extracted from the literature and a new method for characterizing mixed flow was created to provide the algorithm with a basis of 28 convection coefficient correlations. Collectively these methods can calculate convection coefficients for most flows of practical interest in building modelling. Working with this suite of correlations, the algorithm dynamically controls the modelling of convection by assigning appropriate equations to each internal surface each time-step of the simulation.