Optimization of energy parameters in buildings

When designing buildings, energy analysis is typically done after construction has been completed, but making the design decisions while keeping energy efficiency in mind, is one way to make energy-efficient buildings. The conscious design of building parameters could decrease or completely eliminate the need for Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning systems, and thus, optimizing building parameters could help conserve a great amount of energy. This work focuses on two buildings - a passive solar house and an apartment in Beijing. The Beijing apartment is used to study natural ventilation in a space. Both buildings are modeled using EnergyPlus, and analyzed using VBA in Excel. The Genetic Algorithm Optimization Toolbox (GAOT) is used to optimize the parameters for the solar house. The program was run for 150 generations, with there being 20 individuals in each population. The optimized parameters for the solar house resulted in a mean internal temperature of 20.1 C, 7 C lower than that for randomly chosen parameters. The extreme temperatures in both cases were also markedly different, with the optimized parameters providing a more comfortable atmosphere in the house.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Jain, Ruchi V

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Leslie K. Norford.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/40445

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/40445