Benefit Sky Matrix
Get a matrix representing the benefit/harm of radiation based on temperature data.
When this sky matrix is used in radiation studies or to produce radiation graphics, positive values represent helpful wintertime sun energy that can offset heating loads during cold temperatures while negative values represent harmful summertime sun energy that can increase cooling loads during hot temperatures.
Radiation benefit skies are particularly helpful for evaluating building massing and facade designs in terms of passive solar heat gain vs. cooling energy increase.
This component uses Radiance's gendaymtx function to calculate the radiation for each patch of the sky. Gendaymtx is written by Ian Ashdown and Greg Ward. Morere information can be found in Radiance manual at: http://www.radiance-online.org/learning/documentation/manual-pages/pdfs/gendaymtx.pdf
Inputs
north
A number between -360 and 360 for the counterclockwise difference between the North and the positive Y-axis in degrees. 90 is West and 270 is East. This can also be Vector for the direction to North. (Default: 0)
location [Required]
A ladybug Location that has been output from the "LB Import EPW" component or the "LB Construct Location" component.
temperature [Required]
An annual hourly DataCollection of temperature, which will be used to establish whether radiation is desired or not for each time step.
bal_temp
The temperature in Celsius between which radiation switches from being a benefit to a harm. Typical residential buildings have balance temperatures as high as 18C and commercial buildings tend to have lower values around 12C. (Default 15C).
bal_offset
The temperature offset from the balance temperature in Celsius where radiation is neither harmful nor helpful. (Default: 2).
direct_rad [Required]
An annual hourly DataCollection of Direct Normal Radiation such as that which is output from the "LB Import EPW" component or the "LB Import STAT" component.
diffuse_rad [Required]
An annual hourly DataCollection of Diffuse Horizontal Radiation such as that which is output from the "LB Import EPW" component or the "LB Import STAT" component.
hoys
A number or list of numbers between 0 and 8760 that respresent the hour(s) of the year for which to generate the sky matrix. The "LB Calculate HOY" component can output this number given a month, day and hour. The "LB Analysis Period" component can output a list of HOYs within a certain hour or date range. By default, the matrix will be for the entire year.
high_density
A Boolean to indicate whether the higher-density Reinhart sky matrix should be generated (True), which has roughly 4 times the sky patches as the (default) original Tregenza sky (False). Note that, while the Reinhart sky has a higher resolution and is more accurate, it will result in considerably longer calculation time for incident radiation studies. The difference in sky resolution can be observed with the "LB Sky Dome" component. (Default: False).
ground_ref
A number between 0 and 1 to note the average ground reflectance that is associated with the sky matrix. (Default: 0.2).
folder
The folder in which the Radiance commands are executed to produce the sky matrix. If None, it will be written to Ladybug's default EPW folder.
Outputs
report
...
sky_mtx
A sky matrix object containing the radiation benefit/harm coming from each patch of the sky. This can be used for a radiation study, a radition rose, or a sky dome visualization. It can also be deconstructed into its individual values with the "LB Deconstruct Matrix" component.
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