An agent-based dynamic occupancy schedule model for prediction of hvac energy demand in an airport terminal building

Abstract

Airport terminal buildings are characterised by rapidly fluctuating occupancy levels in different zones. Occupancy is one of the major factors that influences the indoor environment and building energy consumption. The paper presents an approach to couple pedestrian flow model with energy simulation to predict the HVAC energy demands in the transitional environments. For the study, a medium sized airport at Visakhapatnam, India, located in warm and humid climate zone is considered. Occupancy dynamics of the terminal building is modelled and analysed through an agent based model (ABM) . The results show a significant difference in the characteristics of the occupancy profiles between the various zones in the terminal building. A coupled energy simulation is carried out using the dynamic occupancy schedule obtained from ABM . The paper presents the impact of pedestrian density on HVAC loads at different zones. Also load profile for typical days compared for the peak load performance. Finally, the paper presents the comparison of HVAC loads predicted using the occupancy schedule based on flight operations and dynamic occupancy schedule based on agent based simulations.