Modelling the heat dynamics of a building using stochastic differential equations

This paper describes the continuous time modelling of the heat dynamics of a building. The considered building is a residential like test house divide d into two test rooms with a water based central heating. Each test room is divided into thermal zones in order to describe both short and long term v ariations. Besides modelling the heat transfer between thermal zones, atten tion is put on modelling the heat input from radiators and solar radiation. The applied modelling procedure is based on collected building performance data and statistical methods. The statistical methods are used in paramete r estimation and model validation, while physical knowledge is used in form ing the model structure. The suggested lumped parameter model is thus based on thermodynamics and formulated as a system of stochastic differential eq uations. Due to the continuous time formulation the parameters of the model are directly physical interpretable. Finally, the prediction and simulatio n performance of the model is illustrated. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. A ll rights reserved.