FMU software component orchestration strategies for co-simulation of building energy systems

This paper is about system simulation and co-simulation issues such as interoperability. The Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI¹) which is proposed as an interoperability standard has been studied in the field of the building energy systems to make an effective co-simulation of different models with heterogeneous time constants. A chaining algorithm based on scalar value exchanges is presented. Our experimental building (PREDIS Smart Building) has been modeled in different software environments for the thermal behaviour of the skin and for the heating and ventilation system. These models are loosely coupled with a same or a different temporal discretization. The results are about coupling mechanisms and their implementation using FMI standard. Moreover, for advanced coupling strategies, encountered difficulties and FMI specifications lacks are highlights.