Modelling building heating requirements.

This thesis describes the development of a mathematical model for the assessment of building heating requirements. The model has been incorporated into a FORTRAN computer program, ENMAN, which allows the rapid production of tabular and graphical comparisons between actual monthly fuel consumption and calculated requirements. The program was developed for use in a local authority where there was a requirement to monitor the consumption of its building stock which ranges from residential homes to libraries and schools. The ENMAN computer program is used to spotlight any excessive fuel consumption or gradual deterioration in performance. The principal objective has been to produce a model of building heat requirements which is more sensitive to the effects of occupancy, thermal heat capacity and solar gain than simple thermal models without being unduly complex. This approach was adopted because the large number and range of local authority buildings indicated a requirement for a model which was sensitive to different types of construction and occupancy but which did not require large amounts of input data to describe each building. The first and second chapters of this thesis form an introduction and also describe the implementation of two other computer programs, ENGY and ICON,which complement ENMAN by allowing an assessment of the thermal environment of buildings and the risk of interstitial condensation. The third and fourth chapters describe the development of the mathematical model of building heating requirements and its implementation as the computer program ENMAN. Examples of the use of ENMAN are illustrated and discussed in Chapter 5. The final chapter concludes by assessing the performance of the ENMAN system and looks at the possibility of future enhancements.