Coupling Daylight and Energy Simulations - issues in splitting zones to create individual lighting schedules

Hi All!

I am currently creating a file which will allow for a parametric simulation of a 2 storey building. I will be adding the myslider component to the parametric sliders once I have the file working. As is, I have a file which works to run a daylight simulation, create a lighting schedule and then use this to run an energy plus simulation (ParametricTest_Single).

The file is using custom made schedules and constructions for the NZ context (userCustomLibrary.idf)

My issue now is that I want to split the zones according to orientation (interior and perimeter), run daylight simulation for the grids within the individual zones, create a lighting schedule based on the DA result for each zone and then combine the zones again to run an energy simulation. However, I believe my workflow must be incorrect to do this, as I cannot get it to work. It simply comes up with a "Solution exception: index out of range: 0". This is in the Splitzones_issue file.

Any suggestions? Much appreciated for any help!

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Permalink Reply by Anton Szilasi on September 18, 2015 at 9:22am

Hi Elzine,

Sorry that no one has got back to you about solving your issue. I am trying to work out whats going wrong with your file now. Which components are giving you this error? Is it the Run Energy Plus simulation and the Honeybee Read EP result component? That is what I am getting.

I am however having trouble with your building constructions. Simply some of them don't exist when I open your file on my machine. Since your work flow is so complicated and I'm having trouble with it can I suggest that you show me how your work flow is meant to work over Skype?

This would make it easier for me to work out whats going wrong. You can add my skype on - anton.szilasi

Permalink Reply by Elzine Braasch on September 22, 2015 at 4:06pm

Hi Anton!

Thank you for the reply, apologies for my late one.

Yes my issue is with the Run EnergyPlus simulation component, it has a "Solution exception: index out of range: 0" issue which only seems to happen if I split my zones individually to provide different schedules to them.

My building constructions are in the userCustomlibrary idf file, you need to replace this file with your own one in your ladybug folder where you store your OpenStudioMasterTemplate idf file. This idf was created by Mostapha to enable us to easily use constructions from our old idf files without having to try and construct them all manually in honeybee. Similarly with schedules.

Sure I can discuss it over skype, however I am in NZ so our time zones would make it tricky to organise a time and I am currently trying to get Rhino on my laptop at home from the university to allow me to skype and show my screen to my supervisor (who is currently in England).

I will take some screenshots of where my problems are and perhaps annotate the gh file a bit more to make it easier to follow what I am doing.

Permalink Reply by Anton Szilasi on September 23, 2015 at 5:56pm

Hi Elzine,

After I updated the userCustomlibrary.idf (I wasn't aware of this capability) I could work out what you were trying to do with your GH file. I believe that I've solved it, it was a bug in the component Honeybee_Set Ep Zone Interior Construction.

I have to get this fix synced with github so until I do if you need another Honeybee_Set Ep Zone Interior Construction component just copy the components in this GH file!

Let me know if this GH file is what you wanted,

Cheers

Anton

userCustomlibrary

Attachments:

SplitZones_Issue AJZ 23.09.2015.gh, 886 KB

Permalink Reply by Elzine Braasch on September 24, 2015 at 9:33pm

Yeh the userCustomLibrary is brilliant! I am still trying to work out how to make my own building programs though... Can't quite see in the master template how I should be duplicating the process of all the various schedules for the current template programs.

Yes I have noticed in a quick QA demonstration that the interior construction component was duplicating my surfaces, but just noted it down. I'll endeavour to ask about these bugs in the future.

Thanks for the help!

Permalink Reply by Mostapha Sadeghipour Roudsari on September 22, 2015 at 6:25pm

Hi Elzine,

I didn't test your file but Honeybee does take care of generating different lighting schedules for different zones. testPointGenerator graft the points for each testSurface automatically which will be used to generate several schedules. I attached a simple example for your reference.

Mostapha

Attachments:

multipleZoneSchedule.gh, 492 KB

Permalink Reply by Elzine Braasch on September 24, 2015 at 9:30pm

Hi Mostapha,

Oh excellent! I'm a newbie to Daysim but my supervisor, Dr. Michael Donn, has pointed me to some simple exercises to give me a crash course. Seems I've been over complicating the creation of the lighting schedules.

Cheers,

Elzine

Permalink Reply by Elzine Braasch on September 28, 2015 at 8:18pm

Hi Mostapha,

I have simplified my file to only do a daylight analysis on the perimeter zones to determine their lighting schedules, however the run component is having a runtime error issue "pop off of list"? I am unfamiliar with this error.

The component supplied in your example file works to provide test points, and should from my knowledge work...

Are you able to look at the file and see what is causing this issue?