History of ESP-r
ESP-r was originally authored by Professor Joe Clarke at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow Scotland in the mid 1970s. Over time other research groups joined in its development. In 2002 ESP-r adopted a GPL license and then was moved from an internal repository in the University of Strathclyde to a public source code repository. Currently the repository is hosted on github.
Initial goals of ESP-r
The initial goals of ESP-r were to support dynamic, first principles assessments of building physics across multiple domains. Essentially everything in ESP-r is represented as a finite volume which preserves a mass and energy balance at each timestep. Depending on the extent of the model description multiple solvers are invoked and communicate via message passing conventions. Users set the level of compositional resolution in each domain as well as the time frequency and durations of assessments. If you want to explicitly represent a wall thermostat as a thermal zone to study the interaction of the sensor on the circuit board or set a whole floor of a building as a zone it is your choice.
The book Energy Simulation in Building Design, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, 1985 and 2001 ISBN - 750650826 describes the numerical approach. The ESRU web site www.esru.strath.ac.uk/publications.htm includes many publications about ESP-r, its validation and use.
Recent changes
ESP-r is under continuous development. Recent changes have extended the data model to support pre-defined objects (which have both visual and thermophysical characteristics), improved the joint solution of mass flow and CFD domains during transient assessments, introduced a graphic tool for the definition of flow and systems networks.
Core audience
ESP-r is a general purpose tool which, in the hands of experienced users, can approach a range of simulation tasks including highly bespoke multi-criteria assessments, design-of-experiments, and parametric studies. As such it is best used by opinionated practitioners who have clear simulation goals as well as the pattern matching skills to interpret predictions. It is also used by research groups who are interested in pushing the boundaries of simulation. It has been used as a teaching tool for decades (virtual experiments can be setup and students can single-step through the solution if desired). It has also been used as the underlying engine for compliance regimes.
Future goals
Work in progress includes additional methods for tracking occupant interactions, setting occupant metabolic rates, better support for multiple CFD domains, additional zonal approaches to system components and more options for self-shading.
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