Dynamic Thermal Simulations for Developing Early-Stage Assessments for Office Buildings

Office buildings account for a large portion of the total energy consumption in Europe because due to increased comfort requirements almost all recent buildings are air-conditioned. This project is focused on the influence of thermal storage capacity of commonly used structure types of office buildings and different technical strategies on energy efficiency and thermal comfort. The technical parameter ventilation strategy is essential compared to the parameters structure type or window-to-wall ratio. Additionally a lighting control system based on solar radiation shows a high influence on the internal gains and in consequence on the overheating hours. The slab type respectively the accessibiltiy of the thermal mass has a significantly higher influence than the differences of “massivity” between solid and light weight structures.