Investigating DesignBuilder Simulation Software's Validation in Term of Heat Gain through Field Measured Data of Adjacent Rooms of Courtyard House

New designing techniques have been used recently in design phases of buildings to adapt human thermal comfort. Due to wide range of energy consumption within a building, it is impossible to make a proper decision about the impact of different energy efficiency strategies without simulation tools. Architects need to understand the accuracy and precision of simulation software to use them as valuable tools to predict energy consumption. This research aims to investigate the validity of DesignBuilder simulation software by using the actual traditional house in terms of heat gain. In this study, the comparative method was used to determine the differences in heat gain in a traditional courtyard house in Kerman that was simulated using DesignBuilder software and measured experimentally. This study also reveals that the difference between simulation results and empirical measurement is not more than 10%. It can be concluded that DesignBuilder has enough validity to calculate the amount of heat gain in the rooms adjacent to courtyards.