Asymmetrical constructions for interzone surfaces

Hi,

I hope you do not mind my very detailed questions. But as I increasingly enjoy using Honeybee, I started to model the sunspace model from ASHRAE 140, which required a detailed control over surface constructions.

Specifically. the problem is the interzone wall between the sunspace and the back zone needs to have a construction which is not symmetrical, so than one can have control over the properties of each side of the wall. You know that, this is done in EnergyPlus by assigning two constructions to the surfaces, which have the same materials in reverse order.

So, I tried to do this by decomposing the zones to surfaces, and setting the right construction for each interzone surface, but I did not succeed. Two questions in this regard:

  • What is wrong in my model in using setEPSurfaceConstruct, which tells me "Solution exception:‘Brep’ object has no attribute ‘split’ "?

  • In general, if at some point one needs to break a zone to have surface level control, how the modified surfaces should be put back together as a zone? Is it needed to connect all zone surfaces to a createHBZones component again? If this is the case, I guess one needs to do surface level settings before changing assumptions at zone level.

Best,
Farhang
epExam_02_msr_5.gh (566.2 KB)

@farhang.tahmasebi,
Your file is missing information (geometry not internalised and materials). But not much important.
I recommend you to check this example in hydra. It describes some of the conditions you are asking for.
-A.

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Thanks @AbrahamYezioro.
I had a look at the example file. In general, I think for my modeling purpose, it makes more sense if I start from surfaces with correct boundary conditions and constructions and then put them together as zones.

But anyway, if somebody has interest to see what I did before, I upload a new version of my model.
In the previous version, I had used the userCustomEPLibrary.idf with some additional materials (and I do not know if it is possible to internalize that).
In the new version, however, I have removed that part in the model (and all geothermic parts are internalized).

Best,
Farhang
epExam_02_msr_6.gh (556.4 KB)

So, for one thing, I realized that decomposeByType does not give Honeybee surfaces. So a createHBSurface component is needed to change the construction of the surfaces. Next, I will try to figure out how I can bring the two modified interzone surfaces back into my zones.

I managed to solve my problem (even with mass2zone modeling approach). if somebody is interested in having constructions for interzone surfaces that are not symmetrical (to have different properties for two faces of the interzone wall, for example), I did it as follows:

  1. Making the zones from masses
  2. Adding glazing
  3. Solve adjacencies without inputting alternative constructions
  4. Adding two constructions with layers in reverse order for my two interzone walls using setEPZoneIntCnstr
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