BPS and IDA ICE Encyclopedia
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What makes good BPS?
Basic principles of IDA and IDA ICE
Introduction
IDA ICE (IDA Indoor Climate and Energy) is a program for study of indoor climate of individual zones within a building, as well as the energy consumption for the entire building. IDA ICE is an extension of the general IDA Simulation Environment. This means that the advanced user can, in principle, simulate any system whatsoever with the aid of the general functionality in the IDA environment.
Normally, the system to be simulated consists of a building with one or more thermal zones, a primary system (plant) and one or more air handling systems. Surrounding buildings might shade the building. The air inside the building contains both humidity and carbon dioxide. Weather data is supplied by weather data files or is artificially created by a model for a given 24-hour period. Consideration of wind and temperature driven airflow can be taken by a bulk air flow model. Predefined building components and other parameter objects can be loaded from a database.
The three levels of the user interface
1 The user interface is divided into three different levels, with different support and scope for the user. At the simplest level, called wizard, the scope is limited to a certain type of study and level of approximation. The user is given the opportunity of carrying out a simulation directly, or transferring the data entered to the next level, called the standard level. From version 4.7, a new wizard interface IDA Early Stage Building Optimization (IDA ESBO) is included, see Figure below. It replaces the IDA Room wizard which is no longer included. To learn more about IDA ESBO, press 
on the toolbar and then the F1 key on your keyboard to launch the online help.
The wizard level in IDA ESBO
2 At the standard level, the user is given greater freedom to design a building model. This level defines geometry, materials, controller settings, loads, etc., in a manner that should be easy to handle for a majority of engineers. The basic steps of using the standard level are covered by the Getting Started Guide. An interactive Process guide (Help menu) is also available to guide you, by movies and other support, through the steps of building a model at the standard level.
The standard level in IDA ICE
3 At the advanced level, the simulation model is no longer defined in physical terms, but in the form of connected component models, defined by equations. At this level, the individual time evolution of variables can be studied. All equations, parameters and variables can be examined at this level.
A user of the Expert edition of the program may also edit the connection structure at the advanced level. Some of these operations are easy to carry out, e.g. changing a proportional controller to a thermostat. Others are more complicated and require a deeper knowledge of the design of the models.
Use of the advanced level is introduced in Chapter 5. EQUA also maintains some exercises that can be used to gain familiarity with the advanced level. In addition, a great deal of information is found in the on-line help texts. Make sure also to visit the User Forum, which can be accessed as soon as you have IDA ICE running. You start the User Forum either from the Portal page (the first screen that meets you) or from the Help menu -> Support-> Ask a question.
The advanced level in IDA ICE
Forms and dialogs
IDA ICE is built up around forms and dialogs. The forms contain no "OK", "Save as..." or "Cancel" button, i.e. all changes are immedately saved and there is no access to earlier versions of a form (except by using Undo). Forms do not lock each other, and several windows with forms can be open simultaneously (but only the one where work is in progress is active). A form can be printed. Simulations and many other operations can be carried out without having to first close open forms. Dialogs, i.e. input windows with OK and Cancel buttons, work in IDA as in most other Windows programs. They lock everything else but the current dialog window, and need to be completed via one of the buttons.