Floor area reduced when adding vertically stacked spaces into a single thermal zone

openstudio
thermal-zone
space
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When I put two vertically stacked spaces into one thermal zone in OpenStudio. The simulation results shows that the floor area is just half of the total floor area. Even though I have checked the "Part of Total Floor Area" in OpenStudio for each space. Looks like the internal gains (people, lights, electric equipments) were defined as per floor area, so I assume in EnergyPlus simulation they are also reduced by half. Is that what's expected?

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TiejunWu

asked 2016-04-01 13:41:28 -0500

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I believe this is a known issue with several associated ones.

https://github.com/NREL/OpenStudio/is...

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MatthewSteen

answered 2016-04-01 13:54:23 -0500, updated 2016-04-01 13:55:20 -0500

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The internal load density is not changed, but the floor area is reduced. So you need to use the multiplier in OS or E+ to recovery the actual floor area. I believe the main purpose of combine multiple zones into one is for decreasing simulation time if the loads and HVAC systems are similar between zones.