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TRACE™ 3D PlusGetting Started - Load Design and Energy and Economics Examples
L E T’S G O B E YO N D. ™
Trane.com/TRACE3DPlus
Welcome to TRACE™ 3D Plus! You have purchased a next generation, comprehensive design and
analysis software. TRACE 3D Plus will help you compare the energy and economic impacts of building‐
related selections, such as; architectural features, heating, ventilating and air‐conditioning (HVAC)
system; HVAC equipment; building utilization or scheduling; and financial options.
Trane’s Customer Direct Support (C.D.S.) Department has created this getting started guide to help walk
you through some simple projects and to explore the new features of TRACE 3D Plus.
What to look for in this example?
This exercise will walk you through defining a typical building in TRACE 3D Plus. We will describe each
section and give you helpful navigation hints. After completing this exercise you will be able to:
Create a new TRACE 3D Plus project
Select a theme for the project
Select a weather location
Draw and zone a simple office building
Select an airside system
Understand the project summary screen
View reports
If you purchased the full edition of the TRACE 3D Plus program, this tutorial continues to illustrate
how to:
Add alternatives
Create a plant
Select a utility rate and add economic parameters and costs
How to reach us
If you should experience issues at any time during the sample project, please feel free to contact the
C.D.S. Department.
The Customer Direct Support (C.D.S.) Department can be reached at:
Website: www.tranecds.com
Phone: 608.787.3926
Email: [email protected]
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Section 1 ‐ Load Design Tutorial
Creating a New Project
Landing Page
The main program page displays three groups: Projects, Libraries and News & Updates. The Projects
group allows you to add a new project, open an existing project, and displays all of your recent projects.
The Libraries group allows you direct access to each of the library database categories. News & Updates
will display relevant user information such as tips and tricks, updates, and issues.
Figure 1. Main program page
The first part of the tutorial will focus on Load Design mode and the sections of the program you have
access to within this mode. To check which mode you are working in, open User Preferences. This is
located in the upper right‐hand corner in the program title bar. You will see your username or “guest.”
Click on the user name to open and edit preferences.
Select Interface to view the Operating mode options. Feel free to explore the other definable
preferences found in this menu such as defaults for units, library filters, and drawing tool defaults. The
interface look and feel can also be modified in User Preferences. You may continue in either mode for
this exercise. We will let you know when you have entered all the information required for a Load
Design project.
User Program Preferences
Library database categories
Dynamic news
Create or Open projects
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Figure 2. Operating mode selection
Creating a Project
To start a new project, click the + button located in the upper left corner of the Projects group.
New Project Defaults
There are three groups in the New Project defaults screen:
Project Image allows you to upload a .bmp, .jpg, or .png image file to represent your project. TRACE
3D Plus will assign a project image associated with the selected Theme by default.
Project Details allows you to name the project and define other general information. Type your
project name in the Project Name field.
Project Defaults allows you to define the default weather location, simulation details and building
model values that will be used when creating any new project. TRACE™ 3D Plus remembers the values
you use and applies them to your next new project. We will create the example with the default
weather location and will change it later in the exercise.
1. Select Interface. 2. Change Operating
Mode drop down
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Figure 3. New project defaults screen
For this example enter: Floor to floor height = 12 ft. Ceiling elevation = 9 ft. Top of Floor elevation = 6in = 0.5 ft. Window base Elevation = 2.66 ft. Wall Thickness = 7.5 in. = 0.63 ft.
The next step in creating a project is to click the Select Theme button.
Themes
The templates functionality has been expanded in TRACE 3D Plus with the addition of building themes.
Themes are a compilation of templates that allow you to group library information by building type. This
simplifies the building creation process by providing predefined defaults to constructions, internal loads,
airflows, and other areas, such as zones. Theme groups will display available building types for selection.
The current theme groups are education, food service, health care, industrial, lodging, office and retail.
For this exercise, you will use the low‐rise office theme. Click on the building labeled low‐rise to select
that theme, you will then see a list of the templates that make up that theme. These are separated into
building construction, zone types, and room types. Each of these will include a group of templates that
can be used when creating the building.
Selecting Create Project and Edit Templates will send you to the Themes screen where you can view the
template information, change the template data, and add room and zone types from other building
types. For this example click the “Create Project and Edit Templates” button.
Click to upload/replace with custom image
These are new fields used in building creation
Click to continue creating your new project
Select weather file here and TRACE 3D Plus will remember this location for future
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Figure 4. Themes selection page
Edit Templates
Here you can view properties of the building construction, room types, and zone types. You can also add
or delete templates to your project after you have selected a building theme. This will be helpful when
you have a building that has room types from several building themes. To add templates click the plus
button at the top of each template section. You will see the list of templates from all the building
themes that can be added to your project.
As you hover over the names of room types that are included in your project, you will see the edit ,
copy and delete buttons. Click the down arrow to expand each room type template and to
see its sub templates. You will also see this icon next to one of the room type templates. That
indicates that all rooms in the building will be assigned to that room type as they are drawn. You can
change the default room type by clicking on the icon next to the room type you want as the new
default. Changing room type assignments to your rooms will be covered later in the exercise.
Each room type template has three sub templates: construction , internal loads and airflows .
These sub templates group the information that will be applied to the rooms in the building. You can
view and/or edit the information by clicking edit next to the sub template you would like to see.
Red in TRACE™ 3D Plus identifies any fields that are related to templates. All template screens have a
red background. You will also see later in the exercise that the program will show red text in fields that
are using a value coming from a template.
For this example, you will not use the Storage Dry room type, you can delete it from the list by
clicking on the trash can icon next to that room type. Next, modify the amount of people in the lobby
using templates.
Theme groups
New template that defines thermostat conditions and other airflow and daylighting controls.
Construction template that applies to the whole building. Information for specific rooms can be overridden in the building section.
Each room type contains templates for internal loads, airflows and construction.
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While in the themes and templates section, hover over the Office Lobby room type name and click the
pencil button to display the properties of that room type. Click the pencil again next to the Internal
Load template and modify the people density in the lobby to 1 person. Finally, close the properties
section by clicking the icon on the right side of the template screen.
Figure 5. Building templates
To continue to the next section, we will use the top navigation bar. This bar shows you all of the sections
of the project file: Templates, Building & Site, Systems, Plants, Economics and Project Summary. Each
section is made up of subsections, for example, the Building & Site section has the following
subsections: Weather, Create Building, Create Zones and Create Site. Using the top navigation bar, you
can move to any section of the project at any time.
Click on the Building and Site section of TRACE 3D Plus in the navigation bar. You will be brought to the
Weather subsection.
Add Zone Type
Add Room Type
Edit/Modify Room properties
Delete Room Type
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Weather
In TRACE 3D Plus, the weather location is easily selected as part of the project creation process in the
project defaults area. However, the weather section is where design conditions can be viewed and
adjusted. All TRACE 3D Plus files will be run with full year weather files. The standard library contains
thousands of available EnergyPlus™ Weather (.epw) files throughout the world.
For this example, you will use Memphis, Tennessee as the location. Type Memphis in the search field on
the tree located on the left side of the screen and push enter. Select the Memphis Intl Airport weather
file using the replace button . You will automatically be shown the properties of the new weather
location. To exit the properties screen click the down arrow on the left side.
Figure 6. Weather selection
To continue, click on the Create Building subsection on the top navigation bar.
Displays current selected weather location
Top navigation bar allows you to jump to any section or sub‐section of the project. Also displays the alternative that is being viewed.
Properties area that can be expanded to display detailed fields in each section.
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Section 1.2 ‐ Creating and Zoning a Building
Create Building
This section offers three options for creating a building; Import gbXML, Drawn Building, and Building
Wizard. Select the Draw Building option.
You will be creating the building below. It is an office facility with a data center. All the project details
will be provided throughout the exercise but are also summarized at the end of this document.
The general workspace layout of this section, and the rest of the project file, displays drawing tools
across the top toolbar, a tree on the left, and Properties in the lower left that can be expanded and
contracted by clicking the up or down arrow.
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Figure 7. Draw building screen
To start the example, import a floor plan for the building. Your Project Directory folder will include a file to import labeled Load Design Building.jpg. To import this image file click on the Floor Plan Image Tools
icon to expand the toolset and select the Load Image icon . Navigate to
C:\Users\<user>\Documents\Trane\TRACE 3D Plus\Documents\Help on your computer where the file
has been placed and select it. The image will now appear on the drawing grid
The second step is to define the building origin. Once imported, the cursor will change to a crosshair
shape. Zoom in and select the lower left corner of Office 102 in the floor plan image (tip: right click
on the building image to activate zooming). That will serve as the origin vertex for the 3D image. You will
see the floor plan image shift to the origin on the grid. (tip: try to click in the middle of the line that
defines the wall so that wall thickness is reflected evenly as you draw the rooms).
The third step is to scale the image size. For this exercise, there is one reference dimension provided on
the left side of the building for you to scale the image (tip: the longer the surface the better). Select the
Scale Image icon on the toolset, click on one side of the line with the known length, then drag the
scaling line to the other side and click. Finally define the length of this surface (87.8 ft. in this case) and
select apply. The building image will now be scaled to size.
At this point, you can trace over the imported building drawing. Activate the room drawing tools by
clicking on the toolbar. Define the rooms using the rectangle or polyline tools which work
with a click and drag functionality like typical drawing software.
All of the rooms in our building have a ceiling plenum. To add a plenum to a room that you are about to
draw, click the Drop Ceiling box located on the toolbar. Also, when drawing the data center, make sure
that the raised floor is checked as well to give that space an underfloor plenum for the UFAD system
that will be added later.
Room type and Construction tab.
Drawing toolbar
Tree
Properties
Raised Floor and Drop
Ceiling check boxes
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Next, use the door drawing tools and the window drawing tools to add them to the building.
Doors has four different door types: single, double, roll up and sliding. Windows allows you to define
single, array, and band window types. Each type will show a list of typical sizes that you can choose from
a dropdown list. If the size you need is not listed, click on the plus sign to add a different size. Once
you have selected a type and size of a door or window, you can add the same one as many times as you
need to the building without having to reselect.
For this example, there is one double door on the lobby. You will need to add the 120”x96” double door
size by clicking the icon to the left of the size select dropdown. Key in the dimensions and click the
checkmark to add in the door size. In the drawing, you can then click on the Lobby wall that has the door
to add it.
All rooms except for the conference, data center, and restrooms will get a 30% band window on all
exposures. Switch to the window drawing tool, choose the band window type and type 30 in the %
wall field. You can now click on the walls that will have the 30% band windows.
Note: A flat roof is automatically added to the building.
Figure 8. Drawing canvas
The tree will add the rooms, their surfaces and sub surfaces as they are drawn. However, to see these
details you will need to double click on the room name to expand it. You will also be able to view the
detailed information in the properties section at the bottom of the screen. To expand the properties
section click on the arrow icon on the bottom left.
Optional on‐screen zoom and move tool. Mouse should be primary tool for drawing.
Building drawing tool View settings
Grid settings
Snap settings
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Once you are finished tracing the building image, use the tree on the left side to rename your rooms.
Simply right click on each room name, choose Rename, and type in the new name. This is an important
step in organizing your file to make it easier to work with.
Once you are finished drawing the building, it is time to assign room types to each room. This is done so
that each room gets the correct template information. To do this, switch to the Room Type tab on the
tree. You will see a list of the room types that were brought in with the theme. Click on the Room Type
Manager button at the bottom of the tree. To assign rooms to a room type, select the room type on the
tree and click the + button next to the room you would like to assign. You can also use the building
image to assign Room Types. Note that the plus button will only appear if the room type you have
selected is not already assigned to the room. TRACE 3D Plus will color code the rooms to their assigned
room types to make it easy for you to check for errors.
Room Type Assignment:
Office 101‐107: Enclosed Office
Conference Room: Conference
Restroom: General Restrooms
Lobby: Office Lobby
Data Center: IT/Server Room
Corridor: Hallway/Corridor
Figure 9. Room assignment by color code
Now that all of the rooms have been assigned a room type, you may wish to change the specific
information within a particular room. To do so, switch back to the Construction tab on the tree. Then
select the room you wish to edit from the building tree and then click the pencil properties button.
This will open up the room properties and allow you to make changes to the room inputs. Note that any
value that is bringing its information in from a template will be displayed with red text.
Use plus or minus buttons to assign room to selected room type in Tree
Next sub‐section in project flow
The room‐type Manager is an alternative method to assign rooms to room types without using the building image.
12
Figure 10. Editing a room
Tab between Construction, Airflow, and Internal loads to modify properties in each corresponding
section. If at any time you wish to revert back to a template value, simply click the red triangle that
appears in the user‐override field in the upper left corner.
Once all rooms have been assigned to the correct room types and all necessary changes have been
made to room properties, click on the Create Zones subsection to continue.
Create Zones
The Create Zone section allows you to create thermal zones by grouping rooms in the building. To
achieve this in TRACE 3D Plus you can use the drawing and the tree or you can use the zone manager.
At first all rooms will be listed under the “unassigned rooms” category, you will need to assign each
room to a zone or the unconditioned space category in order to run simulations later on.
For this example, you will first assign the restrooms to the unconditioned category and then use the
Auto Assign feature to make each room its own zone. You can find this button at the bottom of the
screen. Again, TRACE 3D Plus will color code the zones to make it easy for you to check for errors. Right
click on the name of each zone in the tree to rename the thermal zones. This will make it easier to
review output and keep your file organized.
Once all rooms are assigned to a zone, you can continue to the Systems section. Note that for this
example you will not define anything in the Create Site subsection. In Create Site you will be able to add
adjacent buildings for shading and include power generating and power using objects like wind turbines
and exterior lights.
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Section 1.3 ‐ Creating Airside Systems
Select Systems
Once in the Systems section begin by choosing the Select Systems subsection. Here you will select and
add systems from the list of existing systems in the library. TRACE 3D Plus includes more than 70
premade airside systems distributed in 10 categories. Please note that you can only add systems to your
project in this section, you cannot yet modify them.
The system categories are shown on the bar below the top navigation bar and include: VAV, Constant
Volume, Double Duct, Chilled Beam and Induction, Heating Only, Cooling Only, Under Floor Air
Distribution, Displacement Ventilation, Dedicated Outdoor Air Systems, and 90.1 Systems. Click on the
category to display the system groups in a category. You can then scroll through the system groups and
view the available systems in that group by clicking on the group box. To view the detailed diagram of a
system, simply select it from the pull down menu.
Finally, to add a system to the project, click on the Add System button at the bottom of the diagram.
Figure 11. Systems screen
System categories Systems available from Library database (list will include standard and custom systems)System groups
System diagram displays components and controls that have been added
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For this example you will pick 3 different system types. After selecting each one, click on the Add System
button at the bottom of the screen to add it to the project.
1. Add one VAV RH (30% min default) (DX) system for the office spaces – you will find this system
under the Variable Air Volume (VAV) category and then the VAV Reheat group.
2. Add a single zone (DX with electric reheat) for the lobby – this system is located in the Constant
Volume (CV) category and then the Single Zone CV group.
3. Add an underfloor air distribution system CV – (DX with electric heat) for the data center – find
this system under the Under Floor Air Distribution category and then the UFAD CV group.
The three systems should appear in the tree to the left. After they have been added, rename the
systems by right clicking on their names in the tree. You can now move on to the Configure Systems tab.
Configure Systems
Once in the Configure Systems tab you can add components to the system diagram using the categories
at the top or you can click on the system in the tree and select the edit button to open the system
properties screen. You can also select the component on the system diagram and then click the edit
button next to the component name on the tree.
For each system in the example you will need to change the fan static pressure to the values below. Fan
properties are under the Components tab. Expand the fan component to view its detailed fields.
3 in. static pressure (office system)
2 in. static pressure (lobby system)
2 in. static pressure (data center system)
Tip: The Components tab is also where you would change a coil type from dx to chilled water or an
electric reheat coil to a hot water coil.
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Figure 12. Components tab
Now that you have configured systems, the next step is to assign zones to the systems. Move on to the
Assign Zones tab.
Assign Zones
It is now time to assign the zones in your building to the systems that have been added to the project.
The functionality in this screen is similar to the Create Zones screen. You will see the systems in the tree
as well as a list of unassigned zones. To assign zones to a system, select the system in the tree and use
the plus buttons in the drawings to add the zones to the selected system. The building image will be
color coded for you to easily check which zones are assigned to each system. There is also an Auto
Assign option.
Assign zones as shown below. Note that the restrooms do not need to be assigned because they were
set as unconditioned zones.
Assign all offices, the corridor, and the conference room to the VAV RH Office System
Assign the data center to the UFAD System and,
Assign the Lobby to the Single Zone Lobby System.
To continue, navigate to the Configure Zone Equipment section using the top navigation bar.
Configure Zone Equipment
This subsection allows you to view the properties of zone level components like the terminal device on
the VAV RH system. To view the properties, select the zone group you would like to view on the tree and
then click the edit button to its right or click the Properties section at the bottom of the screen. You will
not make any changes in the Configure Zone Equipment subsection in this exercise.
Tip: This section also allows you to add zone‐level equipment like baseboard heaters and different
terminal devices to specific zones.
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Figure 13. Configure zone equipment
Plants
The plants section is still active in Load Design mode. However, in TRACE 3D Plus it is used to define
water loops. Since you only have systems with DX coils, there is nothing to define in this section and you
will see the message below.
Click on the Next Section button. When in Load Design mode, this will take you to the Project Summary
screen. You will look at the functionality of that screen before moving on to the Energy and Economics
portion of the tutorial.
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Section 1.4 ‐ Project Summary and Creating Alternatives
Project Summary
This screen shows the alternatives you have created and gives details on each project section. A new
feature in TRACE 3D Plus is that each section in the Project Summary screen will show if it is ready to
calculate. This is done with green, yellow and red markers. If you see a yellow or a red marker, click on it
to see the validation rule. Yellow markers are warnings but allow calculation. Red markers need to be
resolved before calculating.
You can navigate to sections of the summary by the icon next to each section in each alternative.
The top navigation bar will indicate on the left side which alternative you are on.
Once the first alternative has been calculated, you will be able to see a summary of results at the
bottom of the alternative column. When more than one alternative has been created, this same section
will show benchmark comparisons of the alternatives to the base alternative.
Alternatives will always be ordered from left to right. The alternative name can be modified by simply
highlighting the current name and typing a new one.
Figure 14. Project summary view
View benchmark comparisons of alternatives after calculation.
Alternatives will display as columns. No
current limit has been set to the
amount of alternatives per project file.
Displays a summary of what has been defined in each section.
Indicates if the alternative section is ready for calculation.
Navigate to a project section in a specific alternative.
Create a linked alternative.
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Adding Alternatives
Alternatives will be displayed vertically. You can add alternatives using the linked alternative button
shown at the top right corner of each alternative. Once you create a linked alternative you can unlink
different sections to make changes. You also have the option of creating a completely new section, for
example, if you are completely changing the system type or switching the weather location.
You will not create alternatives in this example. The last step to cover is Calculate Results. Use the top
navigation bar to navigate to that subsection.
Figure 15. Alternatives view
This concludes the required sections for the Load Design mode of calculation. If you are working with a
Load Design only project please proceed to Section 3 ‐ Calculate Results section.
Set as base alternative.
Click to rename the alternative.
Create a linked alternative
Allows you to grab and move the alternative
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Section 2 ‐ Energy and Economics Tutorial
You will now add an alternative to the office and data center example and then edit it in order to
demonstrate the sections required for an Energy and Economics project.
To begin, return to the Project Summary screen if you had navigated away. Create a linked alternative
using the linked alternative button shown at the top right corner of alternative 1.
Unlink the systems by clicking the linked button next to that section in alternative 2 and choosing Un‐
link Systems. Unlink the plants section in the same way. Notice that the linked icon turns black to signify
the section is no longer linked.
Figure 16. Linked and unlinked alternatives
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Navigate to the systems section in alternative 2 by clicking the icon. TRACE 3D Plus will now bring
you to the Select System section in alternative 2. You will edit the coils in all three systems to make
them water coils. To do that, first navigate to the Configure Systems section. Select the first system on
the tree and click the edit button. This will open the properties section for that system. Move to the
Components tab and expand the coil component (Tip: coils are usually labeled SCC‐#). Change the
Category of all the cooling coils to Cooling Coils. The screens below shows the properties screens for
each of the three systems in our example.
Figure 17. Under Floor Air Distribution CV System
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Figure 18. VAV RH System
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Figure 19. Single Zone CV System
Once you have changed the cooling coils in the systems, navigate to the Plants section of alternative 2
using the top navigation bar.
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Section 2.1 – Creating Plants
Select Plants
Upon entering this section you will see a message letting you know that you will need to define plants
for this alternative. This is because the recently modified cooling coils now need a plant to send them
chilled water. If you do not yet have that information for your project, you can use the automated plant
option. You can always come back to change it later.
Choose Select Plant from the message options. This will bring you into the Select Plants screen where
we can add plant loops to our project.
The screen’s functionality is similar to Select Systems screen. The loop categories are displayed at the
top. Selecting each will show the loop groups and clicking on the group box will show a list of the
available loops in that group. To view the loop diagram, select the loop from the pull down menu.
The plant wizard is selected by default when entering the Select Plants section. It allows you to bring in a
group of loops that are pre‐assigned to each other. You will use the plant wizard to add the required
loops for your example. Select Air Cooled from the plant configuration types. Then select the Single Air
Cooled CV Chiller, Single Boiler plant configuration.
Figure 20. Plant wizard
Select from Plant Configuration categories.
Select from the existing plants in the library
View loops that will be added to the project once.
Add this Plant Configuration button
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You will see the two loops that will be added as part of this configuration: A chilled water loop with an
air cooled chiller and a hot water loop with a single constant volume boiler. You can click the small loop
images to view the diagram of the loop on the larger area.
Click the Add this Plant Configuration button. You will see that both loops are added to the project and
are displayed on the tree along with their components. The first loop on the list will be selected in the
tree and displayed on the diagram by default.
Figure 21. Loops in the project
Navigate to the Configure Plants sub section using the top navigation bar.
Configure Plants
This section gives you the functionality to modify the loops that have been added to the project. You can
add, move and delete components and controllers. TRACE 3D Plus will only display components that
apply to the loop type you have selected and will only allow you to add them in valid locations. You can
also access the Properties section to view and change the detailed values for each loop. You will not
make changes to the systems in this example so you can move on. Select the Assign Loops on the
navigation bar.
Assign Loops
For plants with multiple loops, this section allows you to assign the demand components to their
respective supply loop. For example if you have a water‐cooled chiller, this section will allow you to
assign the chiller to the condenser loop that has the cooling tower.
The advantage of bringing in a plant configuration using the plant wizard is that the loop assignments
have been done for you. Select Assign Systems on the navigation bar to move on to the next section.
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Assign Systems
Similar to when you assigned rooms to zones and later zones to systems, you will now need to assign
the coils in the systems to the plant loops you have added to the project. The tree will show you a list of
the loops and the unassigned coils. Coils can be assigned using the Manager icon at the bottom of the
tree by selecting the loop you would like to add coils to in the tree and then clicking the + signs next to
the coils displayed in the System Manager. Note that TRACE 3D Plus will only allow you to add applicable
coils to each loop (for example, hot‐water coils to the hot‐water loop).
For this example, you will use the Auto Assign option. Click the Auto Assign button at the bottom of the
screen. You will see the cooling coils assigned to the air cooled chiller loop and the hot water coils
assigned to the boiler loop.
Figure 22. System auto assign option
Defining plants is now complete. Select the Economics section on the navigation bar, when you do, you
will see the message below. You will need to switch back to alternative 1 in the example. This is because
edits can only be made in unlinked sections of alternatives. Click the Go to: Alt 1 DX Systems button
shown on the message. Notice that the navigation bar now shows that you are in the Economics section
of alternative 1.
Opens the Assignment Manager allowing you to add system coils to the loop that is meeting the load.
Will automatically assign all coils to the existing applicable loop.
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Figure 23. Alternative 1 screen
Section 2.3 – Selecting Utility Rates and adding Economic Parameters
Utilities
The first subsection in Economics is Utilities. Here, TRACE 3D Plus automatically assigns the utility rate
defined in the project defaults section (seen when creating a new project) to the building meter in the
project. You can add other utility rates that exist in the library to the project. You can then assign the
building meters to different utility rates using the Meter Manager.
For this example, you will not make any changes to this section. Use the top navigation bar to move to
Meters.
Alternative 1
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Figure 24. Utilities home screen
Meters
The next subsection in economics is Meters. When entering the section you will be asked if you want to
move on to the next section or define custom meters. Remember that TRACE 3D Plus always has one
building meter assigned to the selected utility rate by default. This means that even if you select to skip
this section, your file will be ready to calculate. However, this section allows you to create custom
meters if your building requires it.
Select Next Section to move on to the Life Cycle Parameters.
Add utility rates from the library
Use the meter manager to assign building meters to different utility rates.
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Life Cycle Parameters
Life Cycle Parameters are defined in Alternative 1 and applied to all alternatives in the project. You will
need to define the study period, discount rates, tax rates, depreciation types and price escalation for the
different fuel types in your project.
Leave the defaults for this example. Use the top navigation bar to move to Costs.
Figure 25. Life cycle parameters
Costs
The final subsection in Economics is Costs. The screen provides a spreadsheet for you to define the
Investment and OMR costs in each alternative. Note that you will need to manually add the costs for
each year before placing them on the spreadsheet. TRACE 3D Plus will give you a grand total per year
and for the total study period.
For your example, you will not add any costs. You will still be able to see consumption and demand costs
in the output reports based on the utility rate that is applied.
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Figure 26. Costs home screen
All sections in the project have now been covered, you can move back to the Project Summary section
using the top navigation bar. Both of the alternatives that were defined will show green checks in all
sections, showing that they are ready to be calculated (See Figure 27 below). Move on to the Calculate
Results sub section using the navigation bar.
Figure 27. Calculation ready alternatives
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Section 3 – Calculating and Viewing Reports
Calculate Results
Files can be calculated using the Load Design or Energy and Economics simulation methods shown in
the drop‐down menu in the top left corner under Simulation Method. If you have only purchased the
Load Design program you will only see the Load Design option in this dropdown. For this example, leave
the Load Design method selected if that is your only choice or choose the Energy and Economics method
if you have that option available. There is a third simulation available for Energy and Economics
customers. It is a Set per Alternative option. If you select this option you will be able to set the
methodology for each alternative you choose to calculate.
Next, click the checkbox next to the alternative you would like to calculate. For this example, check both
alternatives and click the Start Analysis button at the bottom. TRACE 3D Plus will now calculate the
checked alternatives. You will see progress bars as the alternatives are calculating.
Once the calculations are completed, you will see the status changed to Passed you can move on to the
Reports to see output data.
The Simulation Settings subsection will not be covered in this example.
Figure 27. Analysis report
If your simulation’s status set as Failed after calculation, you can click on the Errors button to see both
Energy Plus and TRACE 3D Plus errors. These errors are helpful when trying to determining the cause of
failure. If at any time during this example you should encounter issues, please contact the C.D.S.
Department. It is helpful to save a screenshot of the issue so that the support group can better assist
you. Contact information was included at the beginning of this document.
Simulation Method field
Reports tab
Errors button
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Viewing Reports
In this section we will cover the report viewer layout. The viewer has three sections: alternative
selection, report type tabs, and the display section.
Figure 28. Report view layout
The alternative section, will show you the alternatives that have results available to view. Any
alternatives that have not been recalculated after making project changes will not show up.
Alternative Selection
Report tabs (Load, Energy and Economics, and comparison)
Print, Export, and Preview buttons
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Choose the reports you would like to view by checking the box next to the report name. You also have
the option to select all the available reports. To view the selected reports click the Preview button at the
bottom of the screen. The selected reports will now preview in the display section as tabs.
Figure 29. Report options
The report toolbar will also now be active and will allow you to navigate through the pages of the
report, view a document map of the report you are viewing, print, export and split the screen into
multiple sections. Note that the trial version will not allow you to print or export the reports.
This concludes the Getting Started example. Please contact the C.D.S. Support Center with any
questions.
Report tabs (Load, Energy and Economics, and comparison)
Toolbar
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Trane,A business of Ingersoll Rand
For more information, contact your local Trane office or e-mail us at [email protected]
Trane, the Circle Logo, TOPSS, Performance Climate Changer, myPLV, and TRACE are trademarks of Trane in the United States and other countries. ASHRAE is a registered trademark of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc.. LEED is a registered trademark of U.S. Green Building Council. All trademarks referenced in this document are the trademarks of their respective owners.
