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Available NEAT Lab Software

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The NEAT Lab offers a series of software designed to assist designers with passive solar heating and cooling design and analysis. This software is free and available for download upon request.

 

Title	File Size / Type	Author(s)	Screen Shot	Year
RP_Performance,         Version 1.0	3.2 MB / Excel	A. Fernández-González	Yes	2004
SOLRAD Converters,   Version 1.0 and 1.1,       Models 1 through 6	4.2 to 6.8 MB / Excel	D. Overbey and             A. Fernández-González	Yes (Model 1, Version 1.0)            Yes (Model 5, Version 1.1)	2006, 2007

RP_Performance, our signature software piece, is a design tool that can be used to simulate the thermal performance of Skytherm North roofpond buildings. RP_Performanceis an interactive Microsoft Excel™ spreadsheet that allows users to modify relevant parameters that influence the thermal performance of Skytherm™  North roofpond buildings. This design tool provides users with a ten-day temperature chart for a roofpond, energy conserving, and reference building for any desired month. In addition, RP_Performance provides the Solar Savings Fraction (SSF) by comparing the roofpond against the reference building, and the heating and cooling energy costs for the roofpond, energy-conserving, and reference building.

The SOLRAD Converters are a series of six interactive Microsoft Excel™ spreadsheets that allow users to either 1) roughly approximate incident solar radiation on a specifically-oriented plane using only solar geometry; 2) convert mean hourly global irradiation on a horizontal surface to that of a surface with any orientation; or 3) use the mean daily monthly global irradiation on a horizontal surface to simulate the hourly incident radiation on a surface with any orientation. Each model varies in degrees or accuracy based on the type and amount of input data available.