[esp-r] release of ESP-r version 11.8

[Ian Beausoleil-Morrison]

ESP-r users and developers,

Version 11.8 of the ESP-r system is now available.  A summary of the changes
and new features included in this release is given at the bottom of this
e-mail.

The source code may be accessed via the ESP-r Central Subversion repository.
To do this, you must first install a Subversion client on your system.  Free
clients are available at http://subversion.tigris.org/getting.html.

Once you have installed the Subversion client you can download the source
code for version 11.8 of ESP-r anonymously using the following command:
	svn checkout https://espr.svn.cvsdude.com/esp-r/trunk

If you already downloaded the source code of a previous version with the
above command, then you do not have to do a full download of version 11.8.
Rather, you can update the source code by executing the following command
from your "trunk" directory:
	svn update

(ESP-r developers who wish to make source code contributions to ESP-r should
contact Bart Lomanowski at Bartosz.Lomanowski at nrcan.gc.ca who can configure
an account for you on ESP-r Central.  Further information on ESP-r Central
for developers is available on the ESRU web site.)

ESP-r source code is available exclusively through ESP-r Central.  However,
ESRU will continue to produce and post pre-compiled versions for specific
operating environments on its web site.  These binary versions will
generally be made available within a few days of a source code release and
will be announced to this e-mail list.  Release notes will also continue to
be posted on the ESRU web site.

Regards,

Ian Beausoleil-Morrison
ESP-r Archivist on behalf of the ESP-r development team

Carleton University
Ottawa, Canada


Release Notes
11.8 (December 2009)
====================

Simulator
---------
- New control domains have been added for complex fenestration systems
(CFCs). The
  facility expands CFC functionality to allow for dynamic control of shade
layer
  deployment/retraction and slat angle adjustment as a result of a
sensor/actuator/control
  law description. Control functions are set up from Project Manager in a
similar fashion
  to other control domains. It is also possible to set up a schedule for
shading actions. 
- A new global controller has been implemented. This controller senses the
state of control
  loops in plant and flow domain and actuates the actuator of one control
loop in the plant
  or flow domain, hence emulating the action of a simple MISO controller.
The actions that
  are performed on multiple inputs are AND, OR, NOT, SLAVE, MAX and MIN.
- An occupant behaviour model has been added. This is a stastical
description of
  occupant behaviour related to thermal comfort and occupant behaviour and
is
  modelled as adaptive algorithms as a flow network controller controlling
windows, doors,
  fans and air conditioning.
- Individual zone controls have been implemented for the idealized HVAC
ASHP-cooling model.
  Zone control models a zoned air handler which sends cooling to individual
zones depending
  on thermostat calls.
- Corrected a bug in BCL06 (zone - plant linkage) previously mass diversion
ratio was
  assumed to be unity when calculating heating/cooling load of a zone.
- A mechanism has been implemented for moving a model in terms of changes in
latitude and
  longitude as defined in a roaming file. Solar calculations are performed
per timestep as
  the model moves. For times when the model is in motion between named
locations (for
  which latitude and longitude is given) linear interpolation is used. Model
is also
  rotated as described in the roaming file. Upon rotation pressure
coefficients are also
  changed if an air flow network is active. Shading blocks are not rotated.

Project Manager
---------------
- Control day types are now synchronised with calendar day types from the
  context menu. Now users can define day types in the context menu and
  associate different controls for different day types. The day type
  description is consistent with operations description of day types.
  Controls can be associated with one of three schemes to describe day types
  as follows:
  1) One control for all days
  2) Different controls for day types as described in the context menu i.e.
a
     list of Julian days for every day type (or if not defined then default
     to week/sat/sunday)
  3) Dates of validity. One control is active all days within each period
      defined by dates of validity.
- General upgrade for shading and obstruction entities to 
  support additional obstruction rotations and a generalized six sided 
  obstruction type.

Results Analyzer
----------------
- Revise tabular listing option in res module to support additional
  columns of data (now ~20 columns to the application feedback
  and ~24 columns when exporting to file).

Validation/Compliance Checking
------------------------------
- Standard models for UK NCM compliance have been updated to
  reflect changes in the UK NCM methods for infiltration.
- Scripts have been added to automate the mandated UK NCM test sequence.
- Include system calls to official compliance reporting tools
  needed for UK NCM use (when running in Native Windows).

General
-------
- Added a parameter option for the ish module so it can use
  existing ASCII shading files rather than recalculate shading. This
  has been implemented as an option in the Install script with
  a substantial savings in time to build ESP-r.
- Increase the geometric complexity of individual surfaces. This
  is useful for corridor floors and for users who are digitizing
  zones from complex rooms in CAD drawings.
- Increase the maximum number of zones in models to 72. This
  allows UK NCM test models to be run and users who need to
  work with larger models can do so with the standard distribution
  (e.g. not have to re-compile).
- Many improvements have been made to improve the operation of ESP-r in the
  various supported operating environments.
- Many improvements have been made to data structures to facilitate further
  developments.

Additional Changes
------------------
- Many additional changes have been made that are transparent to the user.
  Information on these, as well as further details on all the
above-mentioned
  changes, can be found in ESP-r Central's change log.