The Calendar is an important facility for describing the operational aspects of the building.
It is made up of 365 days and each day can have a different day type applied to it. Day types are used to group together all days in which zones or building elements have the same specification for air movement, internal conditions, aperture openings, feature shading, or substitute building elements. For example, weekdays in an office will probably have the same heating, cooling, humidity and aperture control schedules, whereas the weekends might be different, so two day types would be needed.
The default calendar is already loaded when you first open the building simulator, and you are able to edit it as well. One way to specify a calendar is to copy a calendar from the Calendar database, which can also be edited. To view or edit calendars in the database, click on the Tools menu, and then select Calendar Database. Another way to open the database would be to click on the Calendar Database button on the toolbar.
When you've copied the calendar to the TBD file, the name of the calendar will be shown in the Name text box on the calendar page. The Description text box is where you would type a description of the calendar (optional). The description will then be an attribute of the calendar, and it will be displayed for information only.
The principal function of a calendar is to set the day type for each day of the year. However, the calendar editing facility also offers some other options. By selecting one of the display modes: Day Types, Day Numbers, Dates, or Shading using the radio-buttons at the top of the screen, you will be able to change the calendar view. Viewing by day type will show what day type each day of the year is, viewing by day number will show you what number each day of the year is and viewing by date will show you what date each day of the year is, and viewing by shading data will show you for which days shading data has been calculated.
Display Mode |
Description |
Day Types |
Contains a list of all the different day types (WEEKDAY, SATURDAY, SUNDAY, etc.) for each day of the year. |
Day Numbers |
The day number (1-365) for each day of the year. |
Dates |
The date for each day of the year. |
Shading |
The day number on which shading data has been calculated will be displayed on the calendar in yellow. If shadow calculations were performed, e.g., every 15 days, then day numbers 1, 16, 31, etc. will be displayed on the calendar grid in yellow. The calendar will be grey for days where shading data are available (including days which lie in between the day numbers shown in yellow), otherwise white will be used to indicate shading data is not available - the TBD shouldn't be simulated on these days. |
The word "Start" will be visible above one of the weekday names along the top of the calendar grid to indicate the first day of the year. By default the first day of the year will be a Monday. If this is not the case, then the start day can be changed. To change the weekday for the first day of the year, double-click on the weekday name. The calendar data will then be updated accordingly.
You can set a day type to be an "End Break" day type by right-clicking on the appropriate day type in the "Day Types" box, and then selecting "End Break" on the context menu. End break days are used for the Optimum Start facility. For more details on how they are used, please read the Optimum Start topic.