NIST Multizone Modeling Website
Walls
In ContamW, walls are used to create enclosed regions referred to as zones on a given level. Walls include the building envelope and internal partitions with a significant resistance to airflow. You will note when drawing on the SketchPad that you can only draw walls in odd numbered rows and columns. This is done to avoid conflicts with ducts that can only be drawn on the even rows and columns of the SketchPad.
It is important to realize that ContamW is not meant to provide drawing capabilities similar to that of a Computer Aided Drawing (CAD) program. The SketchPad drawing functions were designed to provide a strict environment for creating the input to the underlying multizone model upon which the CONTAM simulation engine is based.
Levels
CONTAM projects are organized by levels. Each level of a CONTAM project contains a plan view drawing. Typically, each level of a CONTAM project corresponds to a floor of a building. Depending on the detail required for your modeling purposes, you could represent a building floor using multiple levels. For example, a level could be used to represent a ceiling or floor plenum.
Zones
You create zones on the SketchPad by first drawing walls that enclose a region, placing a single zone icon within the enclosed region, and then defining the zone icon. Eventually, every zone must be connected to either the ambient zone or a constant pressure zone either directly or indirectly via any set of paths that prevents the zone from being isolated from a zone of "known" pressure. This connectivity is required to enable a solution to the set of airflow equations solved by ContamX.
