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    Johanes,<br>
      I have not had a chance to look entirely at the issue yet.
    However, as to your comment:<br>
    <br>
    "If this requirement dependent on the pipe spacing should be really
    used for both layers, this would mean that extremely thick floor
    screeds of +15cm are necessary to model a floor heating system with
    a pipe spacing of 24 cm. This sounds absolutely unrealistic. "<br>
    <br>
    I run into similar problems with a lot of common radiant floor
    configurations in the US. Radiant floors are often around 30cm pipe
    spacing embedded in about 10cm of concrete. My sense was that
    because the Type56 model is semi-empirical, what they were looking
    to avoid in developing the correlation was any significant variation
    in floor surface temperature (hotter right above a pipe, measurably
    cooler between pipes). I also had the impression that European
    installations also tended to favor less temperature variability. My
    solution has usually been to keep the floor thickness as designed
    and to reduce the pipe-to-pipe spacing as needed to get within the
    model's allowable range. I wanted to avoid having more thermal
    capacitance in my building that was really there and since we
    usually ignore pressure drop, having more, thinner, closer spaced
    pipes doesn't have a huge impact. I would be interested in hearing
    other people's thoughts as well.<br>
    <br>
    Kind regards,<br>
     David<br>
    <br>
    <br>
    <br>
    <br>
    <br>
    <br>
    On 12/12/2011 06:48, Schrade, Johannes wrote:
    <blockquote
cite="mid:76D707B03195C64E81A623DD170CDF3D049E9189@izs-xchg01.izs.fraunhofer.de"
      type="cite">
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        <p class="MsoNormal">Dear TRNSYS users,<o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal">I have some problems with the active layer
          module of TRNBLD, which I used for modeling a floor heating
          system.<o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal">The active layers, which should be
          displayed in the model, are defined as following:<o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal">Layer 1:<o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoListParagraph"
          style="text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
            style="font-family:Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span
                style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">        
              </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Pipe spacing: 24 cm<o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoListParagraph"
          style="text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
            style="font-family:Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span
                style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">        
              </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Pipe outside diameter:
          16 mm<o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoListParagraph"
          style="text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
            style="font-family:Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span
                style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">        
              </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Pipe wall thickness: 2
          mm<o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal">Layer 2:<o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoListParagraph"
          style="text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
            style="font-family:Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span
                style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">        
              </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Pipe spacing: 8 cm<o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoListParagraph"
          style="text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
            style="font-family:Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span
                style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">        
              </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Pipe outside diameter:
          16 mm<o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoListParagraph"
          style="text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
            style="font-family:Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span
                style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">        
              </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Pipe wall thickness: 2
          mm<o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal">By specifying the thicknesses of the layers
          adjacent to the active layers, the following curiosity
          appeared.<o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal">For case 1, I set the thickness of the
          layer above the active layer to 73 mm, which is greater than
          0.3 times the pipe spacing, and I set the layer below to 0.5
          times the pipe outside diameter (requirements taken from
          manual TRNSYS 17, 5-187, table). This step had worked pretty
          good and the simulation was running without any problems.<o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal">In a second step, I revised the model and
          included the second active layer into the TRNBLD model. As the
          floor screed should be identical for both cases, I tried to
          define the thicknesses of the adjacent layers the same way as
          I did it in case 1. But when I tried to reduce the thickness
          of the adjacent layer below, the following warning appeared:
          “thickness must be in the range of 0.024 to 1.0”.<o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal">In order to understand this warning I had a
          closer look to the manual of TRNBLD. On page 5-58 (TRNSYS 17)
          I found a remark that both layers adjacent to the active layer
          must be greater than 0.3 times pipe spacing. This would
          explain, why the warning appears, but I do not understand, why
          the first case should be unproblematic, as the required
          minimum thickness in this case should be 72mm and why this is
          not mentioned in the mathematical description.<o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal">Does anyone has an idea, what could be the
          reason behind that, or might this be a known or unknown bug?
          If this requirement dependent on the pipe spacing should be
          really used for both layers, this would mean that extremely
          thick floor screeds of +15cm are necessary to model a floor
          heating system with a pipe spacing of 24 cm. This sounds
          absolutely unrealistic. <o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal">Hoping for some help,<o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal">Kind regards,<o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal">Johannes Schrade<o:p></o:p></p>
        <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
        <table class="MsoNormalTable"
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            <tr>
              <td style="border:solid gray
                1.0pt;border-right:none;padding:7.5pt 7.5pt 7.5pt 7.5pt">
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                  style="margin-left:3.0pt;border-collapse:collapse;border:none"
                  border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
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                    <tr>
                      <td style="border:solid gray 1.5pt;padding:3.0pt
                        3.0pt 3.0pt 3.0pt">
                        <p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:3.0pt;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:3.0pt"><b><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Johannes
                              Schrade</span></b><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><br>
                            Abteilung Wärmetechnik<o:p></o:p></span></p>
                        <p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:3.0pt;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:3.0pt"><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Fraunhofer-In</span><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""
                            lang="DE">stitut für Bauphysik<br>
                            Nobelstr. 12<br>
                            70569 Stuttgart<o:p></o:p></span></p>
                        <p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:3.0pt;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:3.0pt"><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><a
                              moz-do-not-send="true"
                              href="mailto:johannes.schrade@ibp.fraunhofer.de"><span
                                style="color:blue" lang="DE">johannes.schrade@ibp.fraunhofer.de</span></a></span><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""
                            lang="DE"><br>
                            Telefon 0711 / 970-3416<br>
                            Telefax 0711 / 970-3399<br>
                          </span><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><a
                              moz-do-not-send="true"
                              href="http://www.ibp.fraunhofer.de/wt/"
                              target="_blank"><span style="color:blue"
                                lang="DE">www.ibp.fraunhofer.de/wt/</span></a></span><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""
                            lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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                1.0pt;border-left:none;padding:7.5pt 7.5pt 7.5pt 7.5pt">
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                  style="margin-left:3.0pt;border-collapse:collapse;border:none"
                  border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
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                    <tr>
                      <td style="border:solid gray 1.5pt;padding:3.0pt
                        3.0pt 3.0pt 3.0pt">
                        <p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:3.0pt;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:3.0pt"><b><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Johannes
                              Schrade</span></b><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><br>
                            Department Heat Technology <o:p></o:p></span></p>
                        <p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:3.0pt;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:3.0pt"><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Fraunhofer
                            Institute for Building Physics<br>
                            Nobelstr. </span><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""
                            lang="DE">12<br>
                            70569 Stuttgart, Germany<o:p></o:p></span></p>
                        <p class="MsoNormal"
style="mso-margin-top-alt:6.0pt;margin-right:3.0pt;margin-bottom:6.0pt;margin-left:3.0pt"><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><a
                              moz-do-not-send="true"
                              href="mailto:johannes.schrade@ibp.fraunhofer.de"><span
                                style="color:blue" lang="DE">johannes.schrade@ibp.fraunhofer.de</span></a></span><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""
                            lang="DE"><br>
                            Phone +49 711 / 970-3416<br>
                            Fax +49 711 / 970-3399<br>
                          </span><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><a
                              moz-do-not-send="true"
                              href="http://www.ibp.fraunhofer.de/wt/"
                              target="_blank"><span style="color:blue"
                                lang="DE">www.ibp.fraunhofer.de/wt/</span></a></span><span
style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""
                            lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
                      </td>
                    </tr>
                  </tbody>
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              </td>
            </tr>
          </tbody>
        </table>
        <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="DE"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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      <br>
      <pre wrap="">_______________________________________________
TRNSYS-users mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:TRNSYS-users@cae.wisc.edu">TRNSYS-users@cae.wisc.edu</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://mailman.cae.wisc.edu/listinfo/trnsys-users">https://mailman.cae.wisc.edu/listinfo/trnsys-users</a>
</pre>
    </blockquote>
    <br>
    <pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- 
***************************
David BRADLEY
Principal
Thermal Energy Systems Specialists, LLC
22 North Carroll Street - suite 370
Madison, WI  53703 USA

P:+1.608.274.2577
F:+1.608.278.1475
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:d.bradley@tess-inc.com">d.bradley@tess-inc.com</a>

<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.tess-inc.com">http://www.tess-inc.com</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.trnsys.com">http://www.trnsys.com</a></pre>
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