A united WRF/TRNSYS method for estimating the heating/cooling load for the thousand-meter scale megatall buildings

A united WRF/TRNSYS method is developed to calculate the heating/cooling load for the plan of constructing the thousand-meter scale megatall building in this study. The core of the united WRF/TRNSYS method consists of three parts: (1) utilizing mesoscale meteorological model WRFv3.4 (Weather Research & Forecasting Model) to obtain the vertical distribution of atmospheric temperature and wind velocity in a particular region, (2) correcting weather database of TRNSYS16 (Transient Systems Simulation Program) based on results from (1), (3) calculating the heating/cooling load using the corrected weather database for a megatall building. To better illustrate the utilization of the very method, the heating/cooling load is calculated for a hypothetical thousand-meter scale megatall building in the site of Dalian, China. We assumed the building would be used primarily for commercial office purposes. The results show that the building cooling load gradient with height is approximately −2 to −2.5 W m⁻²·100 m⁻¹, while the heating load gradient with height is approximately +1.2 to +2.5 W m⁻²·100 m⁻¹. Compared with the heating/cooling load close to the ground, the cooling load of rooms at 1000 ms (m) above the ground decreases by about 25%, while the heating load increases by about 10%, under the design conditions.