Physical parameters affecting energy simulations in historical buildings

With the increasing awareness on the importance of energy efficiency in the building sector, more strategies are being applied to reduce the conditioning load. Historical buildings might have been designed to perform passively in their climate but when a conditioning plant is to be installed, their desired capabilities might become liabilities. A conditioning plant might be necessary to provide the occupants with the modern standards of comfort or simply to maintain an adequate microclimate for the preservation of artefacts. In some cases, a conditioning plant is not needed and a passive intervention could be sufficient to achieve the required conditions. But to be able to decide on an intervention, an understanding of the building’s behaviour is required. Dynamic energy simulation software seems to provide an accurate prediction of the building’s response to its environment. When it comes to historical buildings however, parameters that are required to define the energy simulation model seem to be difficult to obtain and an estimation of the real values are often applied. In this thesis we would investigate the different parameters that affect the robustness of energy simulation in historical buildings with a case study on the ducal palace of mantua. The results show the importance of monitoring historical building and calibrating infiltration rates with EMPD models that take into account the effect of moisture buffering.