Atrium with Virtual Surfaces

Atrium with several Airnodes

In TRNbuild, a zone can include multiple air-nodes.  However, it is recommended to draw each air-node as one zone in Trnsys3d. For example, in an atrium, thermal stratification is often represented with multiple air-nodes.  In Trnsys3d, each air-node should be defined by a separate zone and the construction of the adjacent ‘surfaces’ between the zones should be assigned to ‘VirtualSurface’. These surfaces are then automatically removed/ not assigned as a surface to the b18 model, when importing into TRNbuild, allowing for an accurate model of the radiative zone. 

Within TRNbuild you can move air nodes from one zone into another (including the geometric information).  This way you can create radiative zones with multiple air nodes. 

Please note: the geosurf factors for the standard shortwave radiation distribution are currently only calculated during the import of the idf into TRNBuild. So if you intend to use the standard mode here, you have to do a re-import of the idf with the new zone-/airnode-structure for the geosurf factors to be correctly calculated for the whole zone.