Numerical Simulation of a Building Envelope with High Performance Materials

Abstract

Simulation tools for building physics problems play an important role in design and understanding the behavior of energy efficient buildings. There are different tools available for simulation of these problems, but each simulation tool has its own advantages and limitations. In this paper, a heat transfer problem in an exterior building wall with high performance materials has been simulated in both COMSOL 4.0 and WUFI 5.0. The results show the advantage of using high performance materials in new construction systems. On the other hand, comparable results between utilized simulation tools have been found indicating that COMSOL has a high potential with special advantages for simulation of different building physics problems.