Application of sensitivity analysis in design of sustainable buildings

Abstract

Building performance can be expressed by different indicators as primary energy use, environmental load and/or the indoor environmental quality and a building performance simulation can provide the decision maker with a quantitative measure of the extent to which an integrated design solution satisfies the design requirements and objectives. In the design of sustainable Buildings it is beneficial to identify the most important design parameters in order to develop more efficiently alternative design solutions or reach optimized design solutions. A sensitivity analysis makes it possible to identify the most important parameters in relation to building performance and to focus design and optimization of sustainable buildings on these fewer, but most important parameters. The sensitivity analyses will typically be performed at a reasonably early stage of the building design process, where it is still possible to influence the important parameters. The methodology is presented and an application example is given for design of an office building in Denmark.

Sensitivity Analysis on the Impact Factors of the GSHP System Considering Energy Generation and Environmental Impact Using LCA

“…The previous relevant studies defined sensitivity analysis as consisting of a quantitative comparison of the changes in the outputs to the changes in the inputs [80][81][82][83]. In this study, the regional and system factors of the GSHP system were fixed, and the design factors (e.g., borehole length, grout thermal conductivity, borehole spacing, borehole diameter, U-pipe diameter and U-pipe position) of the base case were configured as inputs (e.g., scenarios by category) according to the range to establish the GSHP system's scenarios (refer to Table 5).…”

Identification of the building parameters that influence heating and cooling energy loads for apartment buildings in hot-humid climates

“…Andarini et al [8] defined the most sensitive parameters for reducing the cooling energy requirements in small office buildings. Heiselberg et al [9] concentrated on the implementation of a sensitivity analysis to design sustainable buildings and found significant parameters that are important for decreasing the primary energy consumption of selected buildings. Badescu et al [10] studied on the first Romanian passive office building and performed a local sensitivity analysis to find impact of thickness of insulation on external wall and roof, lighting, heat released by habitants and set point temperature for cooling.…”

“…In addition, it defines the influence of the individual design components on the total performance of the models in general [9].…”

“…In other words, it can be used to quantify the influence of uncertain input parameters on the response variability of a model [22]. In this paper, Monte Carlo analysis (MCA), which is one of the current global sensitivity analysis techniques, is selected because the sensitivity of selected parameters can change based on the interactions and effects of all parameters, and the minimum number of simulations is sufficient to apply this method [9,23]. In addition, MCA is useful for building thermal simulations, and it can be implemented for both uncertainty and sensitivity analyses [24,25].…”

Effect of the Changeable Organic Semi-Transparent Solar Cell Window on Building Energy Efficiency and User Comfort

“…It is essential to address the energy consumption of buildings in order to solve the various problems caused by global warming because buildings comprise 23-47% of all the energy consumed [1][2][3][4][5]. In this context, the energy efficiency of buildings can be influenced by building façade-related factors, such as the U-value or g-value of the windows, daylight factor, and shading [6]. Two main approaches can be used to reduce the building facade-related energy consumption: (1) improving the energy efficiency of the building facade, and (2) integrating renewable energy devices into the building facade.…”