Since honeybee models work with closed volumes representing rooms, should I model my geometry for this output then use your “Create Spaces from HB-Rooms” component to create the spaces I need for my PHPP model (I’m unsure about this output because I saw that it is designed for simple rooms only)? Or is there a way to use your spaces component to give honeybee the room data it needs to create room simulation data?
Along with being able to provide EnergyPlus reports, I would love to use this to also provide our PHPP reports with detailed analyses like identifying critical rooms prone to overheating, which might not be captured by PHPP alone.
I hope I’ve explained this clearly, but if anything is unclear or you need more details, please don’t hesitate to ask!
So the ‘zoning’ of the model does not really follow any hard and fast rules, since so many different types of buildings can be modeled using these various tools. Everything from single-family to large apartment building to all the flavors of non-residential. So there is no ‘one’ way to do it. But in general, a couple things to consider:
At a minimum you’d normally want to break down the Honeybee-Rooms by their different use-types. So things like hallways vs apartments vs mech-rooms. The only way you can apply different schedules and/or loads is if the Honeybee-Rooms are created as separate elements.
You’d also want to split the Honeybee-Rooms based on the mech systems and equipment. So even if two Honeybee-Rooms have the same use-type, if you want to apply different mech-equipment to each one, they would need to be split up.
I generally like to also split by ‘floor level’ as well, though this is more for organizing and managing the data (especially reporting) than it is about the simulations themselves.
The added complexity that HBPH brings is the new ‘Space’ which is a new organization level hosted ‘inside’ a Honeybee-Room. So using HBPH; a single Honeybee-Room can have one or more ‘Spaces’ within it. Each ‘space’ can be whatever you define it as: sometimes it’s a single closet, and sometimes it is an entire apartment unit. So its very flexible in that manner. Each ‘Space’ has one or more physical ‘volumes’ associated with it (so for instance, you might have a ‘bedroom’ Space which has a main volume and a separate closet volume, etc…).
The Spaces can be created using the component you reference, or in more detail using the ‘Create PH Spaces’ component, and the other various ‘Space’ gh-components:
These components have a bit of nuance to them, since they support so many different types of use, so I would definitely suggest taking a look at the videos here if you have not already done so: 05 HBPH to WUFU-Passive | Interior Spaces
hope that helps! Happy to discuss further of course if that does not answer your question though.
Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed response, the information you provided is very helpful.
However, I’m particularly interested in knowing is if your setup/workflow enables simulations to be run for individual rooms?
When I tried to use components like ‘Room Comfort Results’ and ‘Room Energy Results,’ it seems that, due to how the rooms are handled in your workflow, they aren’t receiving the necessary data to function properly?
What I’m really asking is this:
Should I model my building like a Honeybee model first and then use components like “Create Spaces from HB-Rooms” to align it with PHPP requirements?
Or, should I follow your workflow and then use the data from the ‘Spaces’ component to provide Honeybee with the necessary data for room analysis simulations?
If I have misinterpreted what you have explained, please let me know.
Should I model my building like a Honeybee model first and then use components like “Create Spaces from HB-Rooms” to align it with PHPP requirements?
Or, should I follow your workflow and then use the data from the ‘Spaces’ component to provide Honeybee with the necessary data for room analysis simulations?
Oh, I see: So you should model your Honeybee model first, following all the normal Honeybee rules and protocols, and then add in the Spaces second. The Spaces ‘inherit’ many attributes from their enclosing Honeybee Rooms. So if you set the lighting, occupancy, ventilation, or electric-equipment loads or schedules on the ROOM, those attributes are inherited by ALL of the Spaces within that Room.
The Space is only used within the PHPP/WUFI-Passive, and will have no effect on the EnergyPlus simulation. So you need to set all the relevant EnergyPlus attributes using typical Honeybee components.
Got it, that makes sense. Sorry another question has come to mind now: Would it be better to create two separate scripts—one for PHPP/WUFI outputs and another for EnergyPlus outputs? Is the effort required to merge both into a unified script not really worth it? The goal was to have only one script to manage but I’m starting to think it may not be worth it.
Would it be better to create two separate scripts—one for PHPP/WUFI outputs and another for EnergyPlus outputs?
I would break this question into two parts actually:
For the Geometry, envelope attributes, schedules and loads it should be possible to setup a single script which can define both the EnergyPlus / OpenStudio AND the PHPP / WUFI-Passive model. There should be no need to have separate or duplicate scripts for both when it comes to these elements.
However, for Mechanical equipment - in that case the EnergyPlus/OpenStudio model and the PHPP/WUFI-Passive model likely would need to be defined separately since they handle this equipment radically differently.
So in practice: if we need to do both PHPP AND EnergyPlus simulations, what we would usually do is define the basic model with its geometry, assign constructions, configure usage Schedules and Loads, etc - and then split the script so it has 2 parallel paths: 1 for PHPP mech-equipment, and 1 for EnergyPlus mech-equipment
It’s not ideal of course, but we just have not found any way to automatically translate E+ equipment over to PHPP/WUFI since they are so different.
Yes, I completely agree. Considering the differences between the tools I believe that would be the best approach for what I am looking for. Thanks again for your time!
