Building Information Modeling/Building Energy Simulation Integration Based on Quantitative and Interpretative Interoperability Analysis

Abstract

The integration between the building information modeling (BIM) methodology and the building energy simulation (BES) can contribute to a thermo-energetic analysis since the model generated and fed into BIM is exported to simulation software. This integration, also called interoperability, is satisfactory when the information flow is carried out without the loss of essential information. Several studies point out interoperability flaws between the methodologies; however, most of them occur in low-geometry-complexity models during quantitative experiments. The purpose of this research was to analyze the BIM/BES integration based on a quantitative and interpretative interoperability analysis of two buildings with complex geometries located on the UFU Campus (library and Building 5T) in Uberlândia, Brazil. To accomplish this, two geometries of each building were modeled, detailed, and simplified to analyze the data import, workflow, and model correction in the BES software. In the case of the library, the integration of Revit with DesignBuilder and IES-VE was analyzed, and in Block 5T, Revit was used with DesignBuilder and eQUEST. The BES software that presented the best integration with Revit for complex geometries was DesignBuilder, with the best performance being in the interpretative criteria. It was concluded that the simplification of complex geometries is essential for better data transfers. To determine the BES software that has better integration with BIM, a comprehensive evaluation is necessary, considering not only data transfers but also ease of working within BES software, the possibility of corrections in these, as well as the availability of tutorials and developer support.