IEA Solar Heating and Cooling Programm - NachhaltigWirtschaften.at

IEA SHC Task 38 Solar Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Subtask C2-A, November 9, 2009
TRNSYS
Alexander Morgenstern
Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Freiburg, Germany
TRNSYS is a commercially available energy simulation tool designed for the transient
simulation of thermal systems and multizone buildings.
The software is generally used by engineers and researchers for the validation of new
energy concepts for simple applications like solar domestic hot water systems as well as
complex systems for testing of control strategies like buildings with solar heating and cooling
equipment (e.g. thermally activated slabs, capillary tube systems and chilled ceilings) with
consideration of the occupant behavior. An extensive standard component library and a large
number of AddOns like geothermal and heat pump libraries or air flow models allows the use
for a wide field of application. The open, modular structure of TRNSYS afford the extension
and the design of models in dependence of the user requirements. This provides a basis for
the coupled simulation of the building and the active system.
TRNSYS offer dynamic building simulation with an arbitrary number of thermal zones,
different walls and windows, also buffer zones like double facades, furthermore the consideration
of convective and radiative internal loads, the influence of shading devices as well
as natural and mechanical ventilation and interzonal air change. A special building editor is
available to configure the building type of TRNSYS.
The support for the integration of control strategies for shading, ventilation, heating and airconditioning
as well as the import of weather data is implemented in the software. Time steps
can be defined by user.
All common programming languages (C++, PASCAL, FORTRAN, …) can be used by
developers to add custom component models.
TRNSYS allows e.g. simulations for the following applications:
- Solar systems (solar hot water, solar combi systems and electric systems with PV)
- Low energy buildings and HVAC systems
- Renewable energy systems
- Cogeneration and fuel cells
More information: http://sel.me.wisc.edu/trnsys/ ; www.trnsys.de
Example: graphical display of a building load simulation with TRNSYS. The building configuration
editor is shown in the front.
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