A comparison study of various sensitivity analysis methods in building applications

Abstract

This paper aims to present a comparison study on the performances of different SA methods in building energy simulation. Firstly, a literature review on the principles and applications of several popular SA methods was conducted. Secondly, an EnergyPlus based Monte Carlo simulation was performed as the case study. Then, various SA methods were used to compute the sensitivity indexes. Finally, a comprehensive comparison of the SA methods in terms of the time and computational costs, accuracy, convergence rate, and the complexity was provided. This study is expected to provide a specific and detailed guidance on the selection of the SA method to the practitioners in the building simulation field.