Automated performance measurement for 3D building modeling decisions

Building information modeling (BIM) is instrumental in documenting design, enhancing customer experience, and improving product functionality in capital projects. However, high-quality building models do not happen by accident, but rather because of a managed process that involves several participants from different disciplines and backgrounds. Throughout this process, the different priorities of design modelers often result in conflicts that can negatively impact project outcomes. To prevent such unwanted outcomes from occurring, the modeling process needs to be effectively managed. This effective management requires an ability to closely monitor the modeling process and correctly measure the modelers' performance. Nevertheless, existing methods of performance monitoring in building design practices lack an objective measurement system to quantify modeling progress. The widespread utilization of BIM tools presents a unique opportunity to retrieve granular design process data and conduct accurate performance measurements. This research improves upon previous efforts by presenting a novel application programming interface (API)-enabled approach to (a) automatically collect detailed model development data directly from BIM software packages in real-time, and (b) efficiently calculate several modeling performance measures during schematic and design development phases of building projects. These indicators can be used to properly arrange modeling teams in the quest for high-quality building models. The specific objectives of this study to examine the feasibility of a proposed automated design performance measurement framework, and to identify optimal modeling team configurations using empirical performance information. A passive data recording approach allows for the real-time capture of comprehensive user interface (UI) interaction and model element modification events. The proposed framework is implemented as an Autodesk Revit plugin. Next, an experiment is conducted to capture data using the developed Revit plugin. Experiment participants' individual production rates are estimated to establish the validity of the proposed approach to identify the optimal design team configuration. The presented approach uses the earliest due date (EDD) sequencing rule in combination with the critical path method (CPM) to calculate the maximum lateness for different design team arrangements.     

Modeling occupancy and behavior for better building design and operation—A critical review

People spend more than 90% of their life time in buildings, which makes occupant behavior one of the leading influences of energy consumption in buildings. Occupancy and occupant behavior, which refer to human presence inside buildings and their active interactions with various building system such as lighting, heating, cooling, ventilation, window blinds, and plugs, attract great attention of research with regard to better building design and operation. Due to the stochastic nature of occupant behavior, prior occupancy models vary dramatically in terms of data sampling, spatial and temporal resolution. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the current modeling efforts of occupant behavior, summarizes occupancy models for various applications including building energy performance analysis, building architectural and engineering design, intelligent building operations and building safety design, and presents challenges and areas where future research could be undertaken. In addition, modeling requirement for different applications is analyzed. Furthermore, a few commonly used statistical and data mining models are presented. The purpose of this paper is to provide a modeling reference for future researchers so that a proper method or model can be selected for a specific research purpose.     

跨学科设计团队的综合设计课程

怀俄明大学(University of Wyoming)建筑工程系所设计的本科课程侧重于建筑技术、能源效率和跨学科设计等方面。早在五年前,怀俄明大学(UW)就决定了应该利用BIM完成设计课程。去年,已经开始在整个建筑模拟和性能分析中利用BIM;而今年,我们已经更进一步,将建筑设计课程与高级的暖通空调课程相结合,以获得跨学科综合设计经验。本文旨在记录怀俄明大学(UW)为一项建筑工程计划所做出的努力。该项计划实施综合设计,探索和教授设计建筑的技术过程,以便达到建筑性能的优化。     

Generating, evaluating and visualizing construction schedules with CAD tools

Collaborative AEC technologies centering around component-based CAD models support architectural and structural perspectives. The construction perspective is often neglected because an important dimension for construction–time–is missing. Construction planners are forced to abstract CAD model building components into schedule models representing time. 4D-CAD (3D-CAD+time) removes this abstraction by linking a 3D building model and schedule model through associative relationships. Adding time to 3D-CAD models extends the use of CAD tools from the design phase to the construction phase. Although commercial 4D tools exist that allow planners to build 4D models and create graphic simulations of the construction process, these tools lack features to support analysis of these models, easy generation and manipulation of such models, and realistic visualizations of the construction process. This paper discusses these shortcomings, highlights requirements for CAD tools to support construction planning tasks, and describes our efforts to develop 4D tools that generate 4D+x models that more realistically represent the construction process.     

Validations for ensuring the interoperability of data exchange of a building information model

During the design and construction phases of building projects, domain experts iteratively exchange building information models. One of their goals is to ensure that the requirements and objectives of a proposed project are satisfied. In addition, most building information modeling software currently implements heterogeneous mapping processes in their IFC interfaces that bind their native models to the IFC format. However, such exchanges frequently do not realize intended geometric transformations, project requirements, and required syntactic and semantic conditions in building model data, exacerbating the problem of model integrity and resulting in expensive changes during the construction and operation phases. These problematic issues have been addressed by the development of solid frameworks for validating a building design. This paper surveys six currently available applications for validating building design data and identifies their strengths and weaknesses: The Express Engine's EXPRESSO, the JDSAI™, the EXPRESS Data Manager™, the IFC server ActiveX Component, the IfcDoc, and the Solibri Model Checker^®. We also structured the validation processes into three types of tasks: 1) a syntax check of the assurance of compliance with the IFC schema defined by the EXPRESS language, 2) semantic and syntactic assessment in terms of conformity to model view definitions, which consist of concept modularizations, and 3) the validation of design programming requirements that evaluates regulations, project criteria, owner requirements, and functional performance. The purpose of this survey, based on available software that supports the validation of building model data for these three types of interoperability issues, is to integrate diverse checking approaches, as a basis for improving what are now widely distributed efforts.     

A theoretical framework of a BIM-based multi-disciplinary collaboration platform

Most complex projects in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industries involve multi-disciplinary collaboration and the exchange of large building data set. Traditionally, the collaboration efforts across the disciplines have been based on the frequent exchange of 2D drawings and documents. However, during the past decade, the widespread adoption of object-oriented Computer-aided Design (CAD) tools has generated more interests in Building Information Modelling (BIM). A number of BIM-compliant applications such as analysis tools, model checkers and facility management applications are being developed. This paper develops a theoretical framework of technical requirements for using BIM-server as a multi-disciplinary collaboration platform. The methodologies that are used to develop the framework include focus group interviews (FGIs) with representatives from the diverse AEC disciplines, a case study of an Architectural project using a state-of-the-art BIM-server, and a critical review and analysis of current collaboration platforms that are available to the AEC industries. This paper concludes that greater emphasis should be placed on supporting technical requirements to facilitate technology management and implementation across disciplines. Their implications for user-centric technology development in design and construction industry are also discussed.     

Whole-building simulation with symbolic DAE equations and general purpose solvers

In building simulation, as in several other domains, traditional monolithic simulation codes are still in dominance over simulators based on symbolic equations in a general modeling language. Introduced in 1998, IDA Indoor Climate and Energy has become the first widely spread thermal building performance simulator based on the new technology. Developing a full-fledged dynamic whole-building simulation program is a formidable endeavor in any setting and since the first beta version in 1997 a number of lessons have been learned. The paper shares some of these experiences concerning general program structure, models, performance, integration, GUI design and issues specifically linked to equation-based modeling using a variable timestep differential-algebraic (DAE) solver.     

Capturing a Scheme Design for Rainscreen Cladding

Abstract:   This article reports on the exploratory application of product modeling techniques to the cladding of buildings. More specifically, it focuses on the development of a product model to formally capture the scheme design for a building that is clad with "rainscreen cladding." Such a model would enable the cladding scheme design to be conveyed in digital form throughout the subsequent procurement process. Rainscreen cladding was selected as being an exemplar of the cladding types used on buildings, although the resulting product model provides for the capture of visual and functional requirements. The article introduces the wider context of the research, explains the particular focus adopted for the modeling, describes the as-developed product model and includes an outline of prototype software that was developed specifically to help validate the model. The resulting product model could readily be reworked as a cladding extension to the IFC or the CIS/2.     

Analysis of an energy efficient building design through data mining approach

Incorporating energy efficiency and sustainable green design features into new/existing buildings has become a top priority in recent years for building owners, designers, contractors, and facility managers. This paper intends to address why delivery of an energy efficient building is not just the result of applying one or more isolated technologies. Rather, it can best be obtained using an integrated whole building process throughout the entire project development process, which leads building designers to generate a large amount of data during energy simulations. The authors observed that even a simple energy modeling run generated pages of data with many different variables. The volumes of energy modeling data clearly overwhelm traditional data analysis methods such as spreadsheets and ad-hoc queries with so many factors to be considered. An integrated or whole building design process involves studies of the energy-related impacts and interactions of all building components, including the building location, envelope (walls, windows, doors, and roof), heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system, lighting, controls, and equipment, which shows why it is so difficult to find the correlation between different systems. The objective of this research is to develop an energy efficient building design process using data mining technology which can help project teams discover important patterns to improve the building design. This paper utilizes the data mining technology to extract interrelationships and patterns of interest from a large dataset. Case study revealed that data mining based energy modeling help project teams discover useful patterns to improve the energy efficiency of building design during the design phase. The method developed during this research could be used to guide designers and engineers through the process of completing an early design energy analysis based on energy simulation models.     

Developing a physical BIM library for building thermal energy simulation

Insufficient interoperability resulting from complex data exchange between architectural design and building energy simulation prevents the efficient use of energy performance analyses in the early design stage. This paper presents the development of a Modelica library for Building Information Modeling (BIM)-based building energy simulation (ModelicaBIM library) using an Object-Oriented Physical Modeling (OOPM) approach and Modelica, an equation-based OOPM language. By using the ModelicaBIM library, our project investigates system interfaces between BIM and energy simulation, which can perform semi-automatic translation from the building models in BIM to building energy modeling (BEM) using a BIM's authoring tool's Application Programming Interface (API).The ModelicaBIM library consists of OOPM-based BIM classes and OOPM-based BIM structure. OOPM-based BIM classes represent building component information. OOPM-based BIM structure consists of test case models that demonstrate (i) how building information in BIM can be transformed to OOPM and (ii) how design operations in BIM, such as changing a building geometry and editing building components, can be translated into BEM. A case study for simulation result comparisons has been conducted using (i) OOPM-based BIM models in the ModelicaBIM library and (ii) LBNL Modelica Buildings library (a Modelica-based building thermal simulation library developed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory). Our implementation shows that the ModelicaBIM library enables (i) objects in BIM to be translated into the OOPM-based energy models and (ii) existing OOPM library to be utilized as a simulation solver for BIM-based energy simulation.     

基于IFC标准的BIM数据共享与交换

BIM技术正在全球范围内推动传统建筑行业产生重大变革。对比过去建筑项目采用分散的图纸开展工作的习惯,BIM技术运用面向对象的方法,采用相互关联的建筑对象信息,能够实现建筑工程项目的协同设计、施工和运维管理。由于建筑项目具有多专业多部门的特点,各专业分工不可避免地使用不同的BIM软件。然而,目前不同的BIM软件主要采用自身的内部数据格式,不同的数据格式导致建筑项目BIM应用过程中普遍存在数据交互效率低的问题。鉴于此,该文提出基于IFC标准的BIM数据共享与交换技术路线,并自主研发基于IFC的结构模型服务器IFC-SMS与基于IFC的BIM协同平台SJTUBIM,为解决建筑项目过程中的不可避免的数据交互问题提供一条有效的途径。最后,以上海交大日上江村项目为分析案例,验证该技术路线的可行性。     

IFC and building lifecycle management

This paper presents an extension of the BIM technology that allows to manage information during the entire lifecycle of an AEC project. Usually, AEC projects and facility management are dissociated. Our building information system plays a central role in the improvement of the design and the management process. The building activity generates a great number of data and information of various kinds. The management and the communication of these data by the various participants is complex. Our design and management methods use IFC files to facilitate the sharing process for a better qualification and validation of data.     

Ancient vernacular architecture: characteristics categorization and energy performance evaluation

Building has significant impacts on the environment and natural resources. The emerging world energy and environment challenges demand a substantial revolution of building design philosophies, strategies, technologies, and construction methods. Vernacular architectures, built by people whose design decisions are influenced by traditions in their culture, have been gleaned through a long period of trial and error and the ingenuity of local builders who possess specific knowledge about their place on the planet, and thus are valuable in promoting climate-specific passive building technologies to modern buildings. This study introduced an approach to categorizing distinct vernacular regions and evaluating energy performance of ancient vernacular homes as well as identifying optimal constructions using vernacular building techniques. The research conducted an extensive computer energy modeling for a number of representative ancient vernacular architectural characteristics observed for different climatic regions. The vernacular test subjects were compared against those established according to the International Energy Conservation Code and those generated by the optimization software. The simulation results of the energy models suggest that considering traditions seen in ancient vernacular architecture as an approach to improving building energy performance is a worthwhile endeavor and a scientific guidance can help enhance the performance. The study indicates that, although many vernacular dwells exist in the world, it is challenging (but desired) to package vernacular architecture traditions and quantitative design knowledge to modern building designers. This project is the first part of a much larger project that intends to create a knowledge base of vernacular building traditions that will include information about not only the energy performance of traditional building techniques, but also address areas of cost, material availability and cultural traditions.     

BIM-based automated design and planning for boarding of light-frame residential buildings

Building information modelling technology provides a game-changing solution to address the challenges encountered in the AEC industry. However, this technology currently is not sufficient to fulfil the needs of construction practitioners in terms of proactive design and planning for boarding of light-frame residential buildings. This is partially due to the fact that boarding design and planning requires trades' know-how and substantial manual effort in developing the building information models. Current manual and ad hoc decision making for boarding of light-frame buildings leads to the generation of a significant amount of material waste. This research thus proposes a rule-based automated building information model (BIM) approach for designing boarding layout and planning material sheet cutting, resulting in practically feasible solutions with minimal material waste. In this research, object-based computer-processable layout design rules are comprehensively formalised based on trades' know-how. On this basis, rule-based design algorithms are further developed and integrated with mathematical algorithms in order to automatically generate design and planning alternatives while minimising material waste. Rich information in the BIM is leveraged to automate the rule-based boarding design and planning. A prototype system is developed based on Autodesk Revit via Application Programming Interface. A typical wood-framed residential building is used as a case study to test the developed prototype system. The results show the proposed approach successfully preserves the know-how of senior trades people while also minimising material waste in automating the boarding design and planning.     

Modeling the performance of residential building envelope: The role of sustainable energy performance indicators

The success of modeling the sustainable performance of the residential building envelope will be to a great extent associated to the sustainable energy performance indicators used. The sustainable energy performance indicators that these building assessment models are developed around should be chosen by taking into account the targeted objectives. However, it is very common to find building performance assessment models that do not take into account these considerations and therefore have a limited capability and scope. This leads to inadequate aggregate indicators for the actual assessment of the sustainable performance of the building envelope for a sustainable energy efficient building. The focus of this paper is to investigate the principal sustainable energy performance indicators for modeling the sustainable performance of the residential building envelope and develop an approach for determining the most appropriate sustainable energy performance indicators. In doing that, this paper provides an overview of previous research on sustainable energy performance indicators and discusses conceptual framework for developing sustainable energy performance indicators. In order to identify these indicators that influence the capability of building performance assessment models, a comprehensive survey of construction industry professionals was conducted using questionnaire survey technique while the data was analyzed using correlation analysis techniques.     

Value proposition on interoperability of BIM and collaborative working environments

Interoperability has become recognized as a problem in the AEC sector due to the many heterogeneous applications and systems typically in use by the different players, together with the dynamics and adaptability needed to operate in this sector. In spite of the availability of many proposals to represent standardized data models and services for the main business and AEC activities, the goal of seamless global interoperability is far from being realized. Instead of focusing only on the technological level, the authors suggest that seeking solution(s) to the interoperability problem should include an analysis of an interoperability value proposition in the AEC sector, i.e., at the business level. The model presented for measuring the impact of interoperability at the enterprise level considers the interaction type, breadth of the impact, and geographic range dimensions. A specific analysis of actual and potential value of interoperability in the AEC sector is also conducted.     

承发包模式的价值原理

理解建筑生产活动的原理,是比较和推行不同承发包模式的基础。文章将一个建筑工程项目生产活动划分为设计、施工和管理三种类型,并阐释了各自的工作原理,包括设计的三阶段划分、设计与施工的协作,以及工程管理的工作内容;进一步分析了各项活动对于业主的价值。文章为不同承发包模式之间的比较提供了一个分析的框架;为政府主管部门进一步研究市场准入、招投标、建筑许可等监管政策的改革,合理调整设计、施工单位的分工范围,促进行业按照建筑生产活动基本规律科学发展提供了理论上的支持;为业主选择合理的项目发包模式,建筑业相关企业探索各自发展方向提供了理论上的指导。     

Framework for Performance-Based Design of Building Structures

Abstract:   This article proposes a new framework for performance-based design (PBD) of building structures. This framework was proposed under the 3-year Japanese Government Comprehensive Research and Development Project on "Development of a New Engineering Framework for Building Structures" launched in the fiscal year of 1995. The primary objective of the project is to create a system in which the performance of buildings is clearly stated, and consumers, that is, occupants, are well informed of how their buildings will perform and how much it will cost to maintain their performance. The framework emphasizes the establishment of target performance, the performance evaluation, and the performance statement as the main three elements. It also stresses that an institutional framework and support systems need to be provided to enable PBD to be practiced efficiently. The implementation of the proposed framework is also expected to promote engineering innovation, progress in building engineering, and globalization. The new framework will also bring other benefits, such as improved design techniques, greater design flexibility, and international harmonization. It is also important for building structural performance to become one of the most important indexes for consumers to define a building's value. The Japanese building code was changed to the performance-based code, based in the clear and comprehensive manner proposed in this article. In the United States, "Vision 2000" ( SEAOC, 1995 ) was published, then many research activities were conducted simultaneously.     

Assessment of natural and hybrid ventilation models in whole-building energy simulations

Natural ventilation is a traditional cost-effective technique to cool and ventilate buildings. Proper simulation tools are highly desired to ensure acceptable thermal performance of naturally ventilated buildings and to assist the design and optimization of such buildings. This study is to advance the use of natural and hybrid ventilation concepts in building design by assessing the accuracy and usability of current thermal-ventilation models. Because of the similarity noted among various models and tools, a prevalent airflow-thermal modeling program, EnergyPlus, was evaluated by simulating three selected real buildings that were supplied with most detailed building and measurement information. The study of these cases reveals that the current model has (1) significant functional limitations for venting and exhaust fan control schemes; (2) need for additional relationships to describe horizontal openings and fully-open connections between zones; and (3) possible over-prediction of buoyancy-driven flows in the case of multi-story buildings. The study further indicates the building and measurement data that are critical for a more accurate validation of thermal-ventilation models, including, on-site measured temperature, wind, and solar conditions; measured volume flow rate data, at critical points throughout the building; and effective area and discharge coefficients for specific vents used in building.     

Modeling and predicting building's energy use with artificial neural networks: Methods and results

This paper discusses how neural networks, applied to predict energy consumption in buildings, can advantageously be improved, guided by statistical procedures, such as hypothesis testing, information criteria and cross validation. Recent literature has provided evidence that such methods, commonly used independently, when exploited together, can improve the selection and estimation of neural models.We use such an approach to design feed forward neural networks for modeling energy use and predicting hourly load profiles, where both the relevance of input variables and the number of free parameters are systematically treated. The model building process is divided in three parts: (a) the identification of all potential relevant input, (b) the selection of hidden units for this preliminary set of inputs, through an additive phase and (c) the remove of irrelevant inputs and useless hidden units through a subtractive phase.The predictive performance of short term predictors is also examined with regard to prediction horizon. A comparison of the predictive ability of a single-step predictor iteratively used to predict 24 h ahead and a 24-step independently designed predictor is presented.The performance of the developed models and predictors was evaluated using two different data sets, the energy use data of the Energy Prediction Shootout I contest, and of an office building, located in Athens. The results show that statistical analysis as an integral part of neural models, gives a valuable tool to design simple, yet efficient neural models for building energy applications.