A comparison of thermal zone aggregation methods

The impact of increasing energy prices on building operation budgets has fueled demand for more energy-efficient structures. Existing building energy simulation tools generate an immense amount of data yet comparatively little knowledge. This paper introduces a framework that allows aggregation-based model reduction to operate on geometric building information models. The resulting aggregation sequence provides designers with faster simulations and affords insight into complex multi-scale thermal interactions. A comparison of the trade-off between simulation speed and accuracy for three hierarchical cluster partitioning methods concludes the discussion.