A way to integrate thermal bridges in EnergyPlus

In the US, ASHRAE has a protocol which they recommend: link. I’m not a big fan of this method though.

I have also heard of some folks using ‘OtherEquipment’ to simulate the energy impact of TBs. In particular this is the method recommend in the ‘Phius REVIVE’ protocol, though it is complex and relies on EMS calculations to determine the total energy demand for each TB during the E+ simulation run.

Personally, I like accounting for the Construction TBs (as opposed the repeating TBs like studs) separately from the assemblies. This makes post-sim evaluation and QA/QC review much easier. I find the ‘Psi-Value’ method to much, much simpler than the ‘blended U-Value’ method - especially on larger projects, or projects with many many TBs (retrofits, etc).

It is too bad that E+ still doesn’t have a nice easy way to build these in. You might take a look at the above and see if they can work for you though.

best,
@edpmay