LEAST-SQUARES PARAMETER-ESTIMATION OF A REDUCED-ORDER THERMAL-MODEL OF AN EXPERIMENTAL BUILDING

A commonly used representation of the thermal response of a building to intermittent heat input uses a five lumped component Resistive-Capacitative (RC) network. In the present work a methodology for the identification of the values of these components is investigated The values are identified from the observed time series measurements of the internal and external air temperatures, and the heat flux input into a building, collected over a four week period. A novel methodology for the estimation of the variance on the identified component values is presented, and the degree to which the model using the identified component values predicts the temperature of the air within the test cell is demonstrated. The advantages and disadvantages of this approach, as a system identification tool or as part of a building energy management system, are discussed.