Adjustment of the ambient climate in DELPHIN 6.1

A simple 1D design, which can be created using the wizard for new projects (see also Tutorial 1), serves as the basis here. The simplified model for surfaces is used here. For example, a simple 1D design only has two surfaces for inside and outside. The following images show the surface list and the settings for the outer surface.

The last image shows the standard surface used for outside. Only orientation and inclination are parameters of the surface itself. All other parameters control the boundary conditions used. The climate of the project location is used as the climate.

If you now want to perform the data shift mentioned in the overview, you must first switch to the detailed model. This can be done by clicking on the ‘Convert to detailed model’ button marked in red above. After clicking, the surface dialog changes and a message box appears indicating that all necessary boundary and climate conditions have now been created. The dialog then closes automatically. Double-clicking on the ‘Outside’ surface again opens this dialog.

In detailed mode, you will only see the properties of the interface itself and a list of the boundary conditions used. Double-clicking on one of these conditions opens its dialog.

The image above shows the boundary condition for heat transport via the outer surface. The model selected is ‘exchange coefficient’ (marked in green), which is the most commonly used model in building physics. There is only one parameter, the transition coefficient (exchange coefficient for still air, marked in purple). The location climate is currently used again as the climate (marked in yellow). In contrast to the simple model, however, the link is made by selecting a climate condition. This can also be changed. Unfortunately, in the current DELPHIN version (up to 6.1.7), the location data cannot be processed directly. We first have to extract the data sets for temperature and relative humidity and save them as individual files. A spreadsheet program such as Excel can be used for this. First, the location data must be copied there. To do this, first open the climate data view in DELPHIN (marked in red) and then click on the table view (marked in green).

A table with all climate data will then open.

By clicking on the button at the top left of the table view, you can copy all data to the clipboard. Then paste this data into a spreadsheet. From there, you can export the data again as individual data sets. DELPHIN can read two different formats, ccd and tsv. Both formats are explained in more detail in the tutorial for climate data. Here, the tsv format should be used. The extension tsv stands for ‘tabulator separated values’. The basic structure can be seen here.

The header contains the value followed by the unit, separated by a space and enclosed in square brackets. The first column must be the time. This can only be specified as a single value and not in date format. The unit is followed by a tabulator and the description of the first data column. There can be any number of data columns. The data then follows, separated by a tabulator. A period must be used as the decimal separator. After copying the location climate data to Excel, you will see the following table:

For the adjustment, we only need the temperature and relative humidity. Since the table shows hourly values, the unit “hours” is also suitable for the tsv file. So first you have to create a new worksheet and then copy columns 2 and 3. Then you have to insert a new time column containing the time in hours, starting at 1. The result should look something like this:

Now you can export the spreadsheet. Select the text format with tab separation as the format. Excel usually automatically adds the extension .txt to the file name during export. This should then be replaced with the extension tsv.

The result is a text file in the correct format with the normal location data. In a similar way, you can also provide any other data for DELPHIN as climate data. Now go back to Delphin and reopen the interface for the exterior and then the boundary condition for heat transfer.

As shown in the image above, now select <Select or create new> from the climate list. Then press the ‘Create new’ button to the right of it. This opens a dialog for a new climate condition for temperatures.

This climate condition can now be configured. The type is set to ‘Temperature’ because this is the only permissible climate condition for this type of heat transfer. For Type, select ‘Data points’ (red). This allows data to be imported from a file. In the ‘Climate data’ area (green), you can now select the climate file you just created. Since this tsv file contains temperature and humidity, the temperature must be selected in the area outlined in yellow. You can then close this dialog box.

This takes you back to the dialog for the boundary condition “Heat conduction,” where the new climate is now selected. Now you can close this dialog as well. Next, the relative humidity must be adjusted. To do this, you can use the boundary condition for vapor diffusion. This can also be opened from the surface by double-clicking.

In the dialog box that now appears, there are two climate conditions, temperature and relative humidity, which are necessary for calculating the vapor pressure. Here, the temperature must be changed to the climate condition that has already been created, and a new one must be created for the relative humidity. The process is the same as for the temperature. The result could then look like this.

To ensure that the climate data is used consistently, the other boundary conditions should also be checked to see whether they use temperature or humidity. In this example, this still applies to driving rain.

This creates the conditions for the adjustment. If you now want to implement the data shift as described at the beginning, you only need to enter the shift values for the climate conditions.

The relative humidity can then be adjusted in the same way. Since these climate conditions are used in all boundary conditions, no further adjustments are necessary there.

In addition to the shifts, you can also limit the data upwards and downwards, as shown in the image above. For variant analyses, it can be useful to have all the different variants of climate conditions in the project. To do this, you can simply copy a climate condition and then adjust the name and parameters.

This completes the data shift process for climate data. For more complex changes, you can create and adjust your own climate data and use it as described above. The entire process is to be simplified in future DELPHIN versions.