Development of a Simplified Simulation Tool for High Performance K-5 Schools in Hot and Humid Climates

This paper presents the preliminary results of an effort to develop a simplified simulation-based tool for designing K-5 high performance schools in hot and humid climates. As a first step of the research, a survey to define the dominant school building shape was conducted in an independent school district in Central Texas. This survey used satellite views of the K-5 schools, where each school shape was classified based on the classification defined by Perkins (2001). In addition, more surveys and a literature review was performed to verify input parameters to drive the building size and other building characteristics. Once the simulation tool and the default parameters are developed, this tool is intended to be used to estimate building energy consumption with limited information about the school building. This paper reports on the classification scheme and automatic building shape generator, as well as preliminary results describing calibration of the simulation to a case study K-5 school.