| Rigorous modeling is essential to design buildings and deliver the next advances in energy efficiency and on-site renewable energy production. A great variety of energy simulation programs exists but they are, for the most part, specialized in one particular domain and they do not allow a complete analysis. Because all domains (heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, acoustic) are interconnected and there is no global simulation environment existing that covers all of the system particularities with the same flexibility, it is often appropriate to proceed with software combination and/or coupling. This Master thesis describes the implementation of a run-time coupling between TRNSYS and ESP-r.;In order to minimize the modifications to the source codes and create a tool able to support future development of each program, new components that receive and pass data to the other program were implemented in the two software programs. A multi DLL structure enables the coupling and exchange of information. A third piece of software, the Harmonizer, launches TRNSYS and ESP-r DLLS and manages the exchange of data. It is also responsible of the convergence handling and controls that both programs march through time together time step after time step.;A new category of components, the Data Exchanger Types was implemented in TRNSYS. These components can work as standard TRNSYS Types and exchange data through their inputs and outputs but they can also impose the solver to continue iterating. This capability is essential to force TRNSYS to do more calculations at a specific time step when it has converged but co-simulation convergence requires more iterations. A component of this new category, Type 130, was created specifically for the coupling with ESP-r. Type 130 exchanges data with the Harmonizer on one side and with the TRNSYS network of Types on the other side.;Testing of basic data exchange validates the data exchange method and the coupling. The co-simulator is able to simulate a complete system with a building modeled in ESP-r and the energy system in TRNSYS.;On the user perspective, there are few changes in implementing a co-simulation model in comparison to a simple simulation model using only one program. Users with some knowledge of both programs will be familiar with the steps required to perform a co-simulation. The input and output files are the same for the two programs as a standard simulation. Settings of the co-simulation are defined in the Harmonizer input.;This Master Thesis describes the work of the project team, referred to as the Design Team in the text. Specific contributions from the author are identified in the document. |
