The Modelica Buildings Library 9.0.0 and 8.1.3 have been released on May 31, 2022.

The Modelica Buildings Library version 9.0.0 is a major release that updates the Modelica version from 3.2.3 to 4.0.0, and version 8.1.3 is a backward compatible bug fix.

Version 9.0.0 has been tested with Dymola 2022x, OpenModelica 1.19.0-dev (613-gd6e04c0-1), OPTIMICA (revision 2022-05-09-master-4b0cd2bf71) and recent versions of Impact.

The following major changes have been done:

  • The Modelica version has been updated from version 3.2.3 to 4.0.0.
  • Most fluid component models have been updated to remove the parameter massDynamics, which is now set to the same value as the parameter energyDynamics.
  • The models for coupling with EnergyPlus have been moved to the package Buildings.ThermalZones.EnergyPlus_9_6_0 to allow support for more than one EnergyPlus version in future releases.
  • The BESTEST validation in the package Buildings.ThermalZones.Detailed.Validation.BESTEST has been updated to the latest BESTEST version, and new tests have been added.
  • The package Buildings.Fluid.Geothermal.BuriedPipes has been added to model heat transfer between buried pipes and the ground, such as for district energy systems.
  • The package Buildings.Media.Steam for modeling steam has been added.
  • Various new models have been added to the package Buildings.Airflow.Multizone for modeling multizone air exchange.
  • Models for ice tanks have been added to the package Buildings.Fluid.Storage.Ice.
  • Various models, such as for PV, solar collectors and thermal zones have been improved to obtain the latitude of the building from the weather data bus, rather than requiring the user to specify it.
  • The run-time coupling with Python has been updated to Python version 3.8, and it has been renamed to Buildings.Utilities.IO.Python_3_8.
  • Various other models have been improved or added, in particular for modeling of control sequences using the Control Description Language that has been developed in the OpenBuildingControl project at https://obc.lbl.gov.

For a detailed list of changes, see the release notes.