OpenBuildings™ Designer Help

Door Properties

Contains controls used to view and define properties for door surface types. Window surfaces are sub-surfaces which are placed on surfaces like exposed walls and partitions. Their construction layers affect the thermal properties of the rooms in which they exist. The door contains properties that all surface sub-types share as well as properties specific to the door sub-type.

The Properties For: Door dialog opens when the Door Project Tree object´s pop-up menu is activated in the OpenBuildings Energy Simulator Project Tree dialog box and the Properties menu item is selected.

Note: The Door Construction details properties panels under the Construction details heading contain controls used to view the selected door construction details. The properties displayed here are saved in the OpenBuildings Energy Simulator materials database’s constructions definitions. Constructions can be viewed, manipulated and created using controls and settings found on the Materials Manager dialog.

Property heading

Properties

Category

Displays the surface category. Category is a read only property.

Sub type

Displays the surface sub-type as Door. This property is disabled, and can not be changed.

Name

Used to enter a name for the door. The name entered here appears appended to the door object on the OpenBuildings Energy Simulator Project Tree dialog box.

Construction

Used to view of change the door material construction definition.

Dimensions

Displays overall dimensions of the selected door.

Reference point — Used to establish a point on the door which is to the used as a reference when manipulating the door width and height. The reference points are:

Left/Top
Left/Center
Left/Bottom

Center/Top
Center/Center
Center/Bottom

Right/Top
Right/Center
Right/Bottom

Width — Displays the width (horizontal distance) of the door shape element when viewed from a point normal to it.
Height — Displays the height (vertical distance) of the door shape element when viewed from a point normal to it.
Area — Displays the total area of the selected door.
Volume — Disabled for the door sub-type.
Orientation — Displays the orientation of the door relative to the building orientation. Building orientation is defined in the Properties For: Building dialog box.

Common

Displays common construction details for all surface sub-types. Common construction details are read only properties.

Category — Displays the construction category associated with the surface.
Total thickness — Displays the surface total thickness which included all the material layers (solids and air gaps) that make up the construction.
Decrement factor (internal) — Displays a Decrement factor associated with the construction’s inside surface. The Decrement factor is used to calculated the amount a thermal wave is decreased in intensity during its propagation process from the outside to the inside of the surface construction.
Decrement factor (external) — Displays a Decrement factor associated with the construction’s exterior surface. The Decrement factor is used to calculated the amount a thermal wave is decreased in intensity during its propagation process from the outside to the inside of the surface construction.
Fixed thermal properties — Used to display the surface construction setting related to its thermal properties which are defined in the Materials Manager dialog box. When on, calculated surface emissivity and absorption coefficients are overridden, enabling you to define your own thermal properties (in the Materials Manager dialog box). When off, the calculated transmission values are used.
Admittance (internal) — Displays the amount of heat that passes through a unit area of the constructions’s inside surface, when its external face is subject to a unit temperature change.
Admittance (external) — Displays the amount of heat that passes through a unit area of the constructions’s external surface, when its inside face is subject to a unit temperature change.
Time lag (internal) — Displays the time it takes for heat generated by the sun to transfer from the outside, through the construction, to the inside surface of the construction into the building envelope, and affect the internal conditions.
Time lag (external) — Displays the time it takes for heat lost to transfer from the inside, through the construction, to the external surface of the construction from the building envelope.
Weight (internal) — Displays the construction inside surface’s weight per unit area.
Weight (external) — Displays the construction external surface’s weight per unit area.

Layers

Contains controls used to display the surface’s construction material layers in a read only table. The table displays thermal properties for each layer such as the thickness, density, conductivity, specific heat and vapor resistivity.