Coupling building energy simulation and computational fluid dynamics: An overview

Building energy simulations coupled with computational fluid dynamics tools have emerged, recently, as an accurate and effective tool to improve the estimation of energy requirements and thermal comfort in buildings. Building modelers and researchers usually implement this coupling in the boundary conditions of both tools (e.g. surface temperature, ambient temperature, and conductive and convective fluxes). This work reviews how the building energy simulation–computational fluid dynamics coupling has evolved since its first implementation to the present day. Moreover, this article also summarizes and discusses the research studies in which the building energy simulation–computational fluid dynamics coupling has been used to analyze building systems, building components, and building urban configurations. Implementing a building energy simulation–computational fluid dynamics coupling brings a series of benefits when compared with the conventional building energy simulation methodology, a building energy simulation–computational fluid dynamics coupling provides an improvement that ranges between 10% and 50% for estimating the building energy requirements. Moreover, the computation time to implement computational fluid dynamics with information obtained from the building energy simulation could be reduced by as well.