Sunday, January 29, 2017: 11:00 AM-12:30 PM
Fundamentals and Applications
Chair:
Reinhard Seidl, Taylor Engineering
Technical Committee: 4.1 Load Calculation Data and Procedures
Sponsor: 1.5 - Computer Applications
CoSponsor: MTG.BIM Building Information Modeling
Building information modeling (BIM) is a software-based method to enhance the efficiency of integrated building design including HVAC load calculations. This seminar looks at several different methods of performing HVAC load calculations on the ASHRAE Headquarters building. One method involves performing HVAC load calculations inside the BIM authoring software tool. Another method involves exporting the building information to a standard schema and importing that same information into another vendor's HVAC load calculation tool. This seminar examines the advantages and disadvantages along with the struggles of using these tools to perform comprehensive load calculations.
1 Defining the Baseline for BIM Loads Comparison
ASHRAE Headquarters, which is used as the common example, is described and common data assumptions are explained. RTS peak load calculation results included in the Handbook of Fundamentals are described and are used as the baseline in comparing various BIM calculation results.
2 Heating and Cooling Load Calculations from BIM Using Autodesk Insight 360
BIM models can be enriched with envelope construction and material properties information, schedules and internal loads for creating building energy models (BEM). This presentation summarizes the workflow for performing HVAC load calculations in a BIM authoring environment using cloud-based EnergyPlus design day simulation. The assumptions and best practices for transferring the BIM data for BEM, and the process of transferring the load calculation results automatically to the BIM will be demonstrated with the ASHRAE HQ Building case study. This approach provides architects and designers to perform load calculations without the need to perform any specialized energy modeling tasks.
3 Performing Load Calculations in Aecosim Energy Simulator Using a gbXML File Exported from Revit
This presentation discusses challenges encountered when using gbXML to tranfer information from Revit to AECOsim Energy Simulator (AES). It also discusses the workflow for adding missing information required for heating/cooling load calculations. Load calculation results from AES will be compared to results from ASHRAE heating load and cooling load (RTS) calculations.
4 The Process of Using gbXML to Export the ASHRAE HQ Revit Model to Trace to Perform HVAC Load Calculations
This seminar discusses extracting ASHRAE HQ building information from the BIM (in Revit) using Green Building XML (gbXML). Then, it explains how to take the gbXML file and import it into TRACE to perform HVAC load calculations. Ideally, this should be a seamless process where all information transfers perfectly from one vendor's software tool to another and creates an HVAC load calculation at the click of a button. However, in reality, this does not happen. The speaker discusses the difficulties encountered and what practitioners should do to make it as seamless as possible.