FlucsDL

Assesses the daylight factors of any number of rooms in a building in a single operation. This assessment will provide the daylight factors, the area of each room that a chosen level of daylight factor is exceeded, and the proportion that the building under consideration is above that daylight factor. This assessment enables assessment of the LEED daylighting credits (proportion of a building that daylight factors exceed 2%), and BREEAM.

FlucsDL is a module within the IES suite of building analysis products, each of which simulates an aspect of building performance

Keywords

daylight simulation

Validation/Testing

N/A

Expertise Required

Knowledge of IES modelling package ModelIT.

Users

Many throughout the UK, Europe, Australia, & USA.

Audience

architects, environmental assessors, mechanical building services engineers.

Input

Input of building shape and form is through a CAD geometrical representation of the building in the IDM. Building constructions, worldwide climatic weather data can all be input via pre-built databases or created by the user through an intuitive graphical user interface.

Output

Output of the simulations is shown in tabular and graphical form within a self contained results viewer. All reportage can be copied into word processing packages for further analysis/reporting.

Computer Platform

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 1.4 GHz+, or AMD Athlon 1400+ CPU Faster processors strongly recommended for frequent use of detailed simulation modules such as Radiance and APACHE-sim.

Memory: 512 Mb fast RAM (266Mhz+)

Hard Drive: 500 Mb free for installation, 1Gb free for Project data. Annual thermal simulation results for large models can produce large data files e.g. >50MB.

Optical Drive: CDRW, enabling large projects to be securely backed up.

Video Card: OpenGL compatible video card with 128 Mb RAM. Suggest GEForce or Radeon based cards.

Operating System: Windows 2000/XP.

Minimum screen resolution - 1024 x 768 pixels.

Programming Language

C++, Visual Basic, Fortran

Strengths

Results of the daylight simulations are linked to further modules in the IES , including component HVAC system modelling, natural ventilation modelling, CFD analysis, daylight compensation control, solar shading analysis, cost and value assessment. Convenient data manipulation coupled with the ability to what-if assessment at design calculation stage. Integrated data model means that design changes are immediately updated elsewhere.

Weaknesses

FlucsDL produces generic daylight factor reportage, users must simply copy and paste this to their own Report.

Contact

Availability

Contact IES at the above address or visit the web site.

Printable Version