2020 11 04_meeting

SOEP Coordination meeting

Date: November 4, 2020, 8:15am-9am Pacific Times

The purpose of this meeting is to coordinate the Modelica integration for SOEP.

Meeting information

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Agenda

1. Previous action items.
2. Release of Spawn coupling.
3. Kyle, Michael: Refactoring room air heat and mass balance.
4. Kyle, Michael: EnergyPlus I/O variables.
5. Michael, Kyle: Support for radiant systems.
6. Stuart: FMI-QSS.
7. Kyle, Michael: Optimica license protection.
8. Jianjun: JSON representation for OS front-end to Modelica
9. Other items

Participants

Kyle Benne

Jianjun Hu

Joshua New

Michael Wetter

Minutes

Release of Spawn coupling

See milestones. Linux 64 and Windows 64 are working now.

Refactoring room air balance

Issues are at https://github.com/lbl-srg/modelica-buildings/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Aspawn

Next, work on

• Spawn FMUs are not yet self contained, https://github.com/lbl-srg/modelica-buildings/issues/2054

• [For FY21] Kyle to fix schedule: https://github.com/lbl-srg/modelica-buildings/issues/2000

  (Kyle either fixes it, or proposes new wording for https://lbl-srg.github.io/soep/softwareArchitecture.html#sending-input-to-energyplus)

• [For FY21] Kyle to look into numerical instability (walls may be initialized to wrong temperature). See for example Experimental/EnergyPlus/Examples/VAVReheatRefBldgSmallOffice/FloorOpenLoop. The temperature in the attic should not raise in the first hour. (Pending since Nov. 2019)
• Kyle to provide list of supported output variables, and statement of how non-supported output variables are handled, https://github.com/NREL/Spawn/commit/e443d634ab4f15d5d69e487fcc206c7d4f403353 Outputs not in idf but supported will work. Outputs not supported just won't be in the xml file, Kyle will work on issuing a log when spawn.exe is called with an output variable that does not exist. Actuators are handled differently, may be addressed later.
• Michael/Milica to use thermal zones in larger model, https://github.com/lbl-srg/modelica-buildings/issues/1502
• Kyle to move model.spawn to resources folder. It has the same information as ModelicaBuildingsEnergyPlus.json (other than that some path are absolute and some are relative in model.spawn). https://github.com/lbl-srg/modelica-buildings/issues/2215. Binaries are posted.

LBL AOP 6/30: Couple controls I/O. (Ready.)

LBL AOP 9/30 (go/no-go): Release that can couple Modelica-based control to E+.

Kyle to work on emitting all EnergyPlus objects that are supported by Spawn.

Contract:

1. If there is a thermal zone in Modelica, then there need to be a Zone object in the idf file. Otherwise the simulation stops with an error. EnergyPlus reports a Fatal Error to its error file and to the FMI API call.
2. If there is an Zone object in the idf file but no thermal zone in Modelica for this EnergyPlus zone, then EnergyPlus simulates the zone using free floating temperature. There is no HVAC system, but may be internal gains. EnergyPlus reports an information message to its error file and to the FMI API call.
3. All HVAC objects in the idf file will be removed by the Spawn executable before it writes the idf file to the FMU.
4. For the EnergyPlus envelope, either the CTF transfer function or the finite difference method can be used.
5. Output variables and EMS actuators need not be present in the idf file.

Radiant systems

Specfication at https://lbl-srg.github.io/soep/softwareArchitecture.html#coupling-of-a-zone-surface.

To be done in FY 21.

FMI-QSS

Stuart works on estimate for how much function calls are reduced if there is no numerical noise from derivative approximation.

Stuart works on benchmarking of events.

OS X

OS X to be done in FY 21. Binaries are posted.

Optimica license protection

No discussions.

Kyle to look into license protection provided by Modelon.

JSON representation for OS front-end to Modelica

No discussions.

To do:

• Address TypeError issues reported in https://github.com/lbl-srg/modelica-json/issues/106.
• Handling replaceable models.

Other items

None.

New action items

Michael to make new issue about logging of schedule and rel. humidity.

Michael to test on OpenModelica.

Previous action items

Michael to keep working with Modelon on making dp of pressure drop elements a state rather than p using stateSelect.

Kyle to look into license protection provided by Modelon.