I’m trying to assess the outdoor comfort on my campus in Japan.
Is it possibble to caluculate the surface temperature of free-standing objects such as a parasol(an umbrella), an overhang and a canopy by using EPPlenum component?
You’re correct, @sineadn , that things need to be modeled as Rooms/Zones in EnergyPlus in order to be able to get the surface temperatures of them. Make sure that you are changing the constructions of the zone to reflect what the canopy is made out of.
Hi @chris. Thanks for the reply. Would you have any advice on how to make a freestanding ‘canopy zone’ and surrounding themal zones interact? From what i’ve understood (from reading Air wall, Open air connection between zones in the [EnergyPlus Documentation]) if there are large voids between thermal zones (for example a parasol and the ground) the long wave radiation exchange between them will not be considered. I’m trying to understand the resulting mean radiant temperature of a point between the canopy and ground for different canopy materials (for outdoor thermal comfort studies) so I think it’s quite important to consider this exchange.