In the Section 4.2.2, the three-publications are discussed, which include: “Use of Computers for Environmental Engineering Related to Buildings” (Kusuda ed., 1971), “U.S. Postal Service Symposium Computer Program for Analysis of Energy Utilization” (USPS, 1971) and “Building Environment Simulation before Desktop Computers in the USA through a
Personal Memory” (Kusuda, 2001). All three of these publications provided valuable
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of the ASHRAE TGER Committee toward the development of early building energy simulation programs; a discussion of specific historical events that motivated to the development of whole- building energy simulation programs; a description of the various studies in the field of building environmental engineering and simulation around the 1970’s; and a brief discussion of the existence for very early computer programs that were not discussed in the previous historical papers.
4.2.2.1 Use of Computers for Environmental Engineering Related to Buildings (Kusuda ed., 1971)
This document is the proceedings of the first international symposium on the application of computers to building environmental system simulations that was organized by Dr. T. Kusuda and held in Maryland in the United States in 1970 (see Table F.1 in the Appendix). This first international symposium was sponsored by the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), the
American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), and the Automated Procedures for Engineering Consultants (APEC). This conference attracted over four- hundred HVAC engineers and scientists from all over the world (Kusuda, 2001).
The document included fifty-nine technical papers that discussed the use of computers for various areas of the building environmental engineering. Among the various areas of building environmental issues that were discussed in this document, the largest portion covered the
heating and cooling loads calculation for buildings. The areas that were discussed in fifty-nine technical papers included: computer graphics, heat transfer calculations for determining the building thermal loads, building heating and cooling load calculations, HVAC system
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simulations, analysis of the building energy usage, application of weather data to the building energy analysis, linear programming and time sharing techniques, etc. This document is
important because it provided important information about the various uses of computers in the field of whole-building energy simulation programs in the early 1970s, which is a very important time period for this research. For example, this document discussed the application of the
Response Factor method to building energy calculations, the application of the ASHRAE’s recommended algorithms to the development of the Post Office program and the FORTRAN IV program to calculate z-transfer functions for the calculation of transient heat transfer through walls and roofs (i.e., the CP-33 program). A detailed analysis of the fifty-nine technical papers in this document is provided in the Appendix F.
4.2.2.2 U.S. Postal Service Symposium Computer Program for Analysis of Energy
Utilization (USPS, 1971)
This document is the proceedings of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) symposium that was held at Washington, USA in 1971. This document discussed the features of the Post Office program, which included: the historical events that motivated the development of the Post Office program; funding sources for the development of the Post Office program; key institutions that contributed to the development of the Post Office program; the Post Office program’s sub- routines and application of the Post Office program to buildings other than postal facilities. The content of this proceeding was divided into thirteen sections that followed the order of this USPS symposium. This document is important because it provided a description of the key algorithms that were used in the LOADS sub-routine, the SYSTEMS sub-routine and the overall sub- routines sequence of the Post Office program. In addition, the section that covered the
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contribution of the ASHRAE TGER to the field of building simulation hinted that the calculation procedures that were developed by ASHRAE TGER, such as the “Procedure for determining heating and cooling loads for computerized energy calculations-algorithms for building heat transfer subroutines” (ASHRAE, 1971), were used in the development of the Post Office program. Finally, this document discussed important historical events in the early 1970s, which were related to the development of other early computer programs, such as the CP-33 program and the NBSLD program. A detailed analysis of this document is provided in the Appendix G. 4.2.2.3 Building Environment Simulation before Desktop Computers in the USA through a
Personal Memory (Kusuda, 2001)
This paper discussed important historical events that Dr. Kusuda was involved in regarding the application of computers to the building environmental engineering during the 1950’s through the 1980’s. The important events that were discussed in this paper included the development of various computer simulations, psychrometric calculations, room air flow motion analysis, thermal load calculation methods, HVAC system simulations, ground contact heat transfer analysis and air-leakage analysis. This paper is important because it provided valuable information about the early computer programs that none of the previous historical studies have discussed. The early computer programs that were discussed in this paper included: the
Mathematical Analysis of Thermal Environment in Underground Shelters (MATEUS) program (Achenbach et al., 1962); the SHelter Environmental Prediction (SHEP) program
(GARD/GATC, 1968); the FORTRAN IV program to calculate heat flux response factors for a multi-layer slab (i.e., CP-26 program) (Mitalas and Arseneault, 1967); the Response Factor Calculation program (i.e., RESPTK program) (Kusuda, 1969); and the FORTRAN IV program to
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calculate z-transfer functions for the calculation of transient heat transfer through walls and roofs (i.e., CP-33 program) (Mitalas and Arseneault, 1972).
The MATEUS program was based on the Finite Difference method and the Heat Balance method to analyze thermal environment in the underground shelter. Like the MATEUS program, the SHEP program was also based on the Finite Difference method and the Heat Balance method to evaluate the thermal environment in the underground shelter. The miscellaneous programs (i.e., the CP-26 program, RESPTK program and CP-33 program) used the Response Factor method and the Conduction Transfer Functions (CTFs) method to calculate values of response factor and conduction transfer function. All of these early computer programs were involved in the development of the Post Office program and the NBSLD program, which were the early building energy simulation programs. A detailed analysis of this paper is provided in the Appendix H.