Room Inner Volume Representation

[RedRocks]

Does anyone know exactly how the use of inner volumes affect the model?

Previously I've assumed that a room created without inner volumes was a solid mass (hence I always used inner volumes), but it seems as though this option just affects the way the area and volume are calculated (which therefore has an impact on any per area internal loads applied) and so the room is still a room, just with paper thin walls.

I'm putting together a comparison model for LEED, and couldn't figure out why my equipment and occupancy loads were slightly different between baseline and proposed cases.

The help files for Model-It completely omit the inner volume button. It would be helpful to have a discussion on exactly what the impacts of using this option are. Will it affect SunCast calcs? Macroflo?

[David]

Hi there,

Once you get your hear round these they are pretty simple but as Internal Volumes effect the area and quite obviously the volume of a space, we have to be careful when applying or not applying inner volumes.

If you are drawing to the inner-line of the model (i.e. just drawing the “inner volume” of the space) then you don’t include the inner volumes. However if you are drawing to the outer-line then you’ll probably want to include inner-volumes as you’ll want the fabric of the building to be taken account of when calculating the floor area and space volume.

That enough?

David.