A multimodel approach to building thermal simulation for design and research purposes

The designersʹ preoccupation to reduce energy consumption and to achieve better thermal ambience levels has favoured the setting up of numerous building thermal dynamic simulation programs. The progress in the modelling of phenomena and its transfer into the professional field has resulted in various numerical approaches ranging from softwares dedicated to architects for design use to tools for laboratory use by the expert thermal researcher. This analysis shows that each approach tends to fulfil the specific needs of a certain kind of manipulator only, in the building conception process. Our objective is notably different as it is a tool which can be used from the very initial stage of a construction project to the energy audit for the existing building. In each of these cases, the objective results, the precision advocated and the time delay of the results are different parameters which call for a multiple-model approach of the building system.