How can a do a greenhouse temperature simulation?

greenhouse
zone-temperature
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Dear all!!

I'm an architecture student and I'm trying to do a simulation of a greenhouse to analyse the behaviour of the temperature with different types of plants and vegetables. My professor is not helping me and I'm not sure about which software should I use.

Can you help me? I'm investigating about using OpenStudio, but I don't know how can I introduce the evapotranspiration coefficient of the vegetation that I chose.

Thanks for your answers, I'm sure that they'll be really useful.

Mar.HL

asked 2017-05-25 01:18:36 -0500

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__AmirRoth__

updated 2017-05-25 17:24:18 -0500

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There is an interesting paper from esim 2016 that addresses the evapotranspiration issue for green roof plants. It may be of some use but I am not sure how to attach pdf documents. Is there a way to upload documents for sharing?

Chris Jones (2017-05-26 07:05:42 -0500) edit

Hey Chris! Thank you for you answer, it sounds really interesting and I hope that useful too. I'm not sure if it's possible to upload a document but maybe it will be easier if you copy the link where I can find the information.

I was looking for the information on esim 2016 website and I couldn't find the information you where talking about.

Mar.HL (2017-05-30 16:22:34 -0500) edit

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An interesting problem.

OpenStudio doesn't have a way of specifying indoor vegetation. The green roof model reference may have some helpful equations for calculating the evapotranspiration rate.

You'll need to do a calculation to get the latent load from your plants, and then create an Other Equipment object with latent fraction set to 1, following a schedule you make.

This won't work if your space is unconditioned and the temperature of the space and evpotranspiration rate are dependent on each other. In that case, you may need to make a functional mockup unit and specify an equation linking the variables there. See this question for how to make these.

There are enough open questions (how much infiltraiton is the space? how frequently do you water the plants? etc.) that you may be better off doing a rough calculation in a spreadsheet before trying out a heavier tool like OpenStudio/EnergyPlus.

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mdahlhausen

answered 2017-05-25 18:52:27 -0500

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You might want to check out Virtual Grower 3.0 developed by the US Department of Agriculture. From what I have heard it does basic energy calculations and that the algorithms are "black box" in nature.

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RCulham

answered 2017-05-30 10:27:01 -0500

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I've already check it! I was my first option, but the problem in Virtual Grower is that I'm only allowed to check the heating demand that the greenhouse will need and an approach of the costs in side of showing the behaviour of the temperature inside it. In addition, it only let me choose flowering plants and I'm more interested in vegetables.

Do you know if the is a way to add new types of plants?

Mar.HL (2017-05-30 16:30:55 -0500) edit