Building Performance Analysis Using Revit
Building Performance Analysis Using Revit
Building Performance Analysis Using Revit
Building Performance Analysis Using Revit Contents 1 Conceptual Understanding of Process .................................................................................................. 3 1.1 Rooms ........................................................................................................................................... 3 1.2 Bounding Elements ....................................................................................................................... 3 1.3 Openings ....................................................................................................................................... 4 1.4 Shading Surfaces ........................................................................................................................... 5 1.5 Hierarchy Overview....................................................................................................................... 6 1.6 Adjacencies ................................................................................................................................... 6 1.7 Different Volumes Produced in the Analytical Model .................................................................. 6 2 Preparing the Revit Physical Model for Conversion ............................................................................. 8 2.1 Room and Area Settings................................................................................................................ 8 2.1.1 Compute Room Volumes ...................................................................................................... 8 2.1.2 Boundary Location ................................................................................................................ 8 2.1.3 Calculations ........................................................................................................................... 8 2.2 Rooms ........................................................................................................................................... 9 2.2.1 Upper Limit............................................................................................................................ 9 2.2.2 Room Separation Lines ......................................................................................................... 9 2.2.3 Building Voids ...................................................................................................................... 10 2.3 Bounding Elements ..................................................................................................................... 10 2.3.1 Shading Surfaces ................................................................................................................. 10 2.3.2 Floor Slabs ........................................................................................................................... 10 2.3.3 Ceilings ................................................................................................................................ 11 2.3.4 Columns .............................................................................................................................. 11 2.3.5 Roofs ................................................................................................................................... 12 2.3.6 Curtain Walls ....................................................................................................................... 12 2.3.7 Upgraded Projects............................................................................................................... 13 2.4 Custom Families .......................................................................................................................... 13 2.5 Ground Level Setting ................................................................................................................... 13 2.6 Limitations................................................................................................................................... 13 2.6.1 Room Enclosing a Room or Empty Space............................................................................ 13 2.6.2 No Lower Offset .................................................................................................................. 14 2.6.3 Elevator Doors ..................................................................................................................... 14 2.6.4 Columns in Analytical Models ............................................................................................. 14 3 Things to Know in the <VE> ................................................................................................................ 14 3.1 One-to-One Mapping Requirement ............................................................................................ 14 3.2 Licensing Not Required to Inspect Models ................................................................................. 15 4 Things to Keep in Mind ....................................................................................................................... 17
1.1 Rooms
Rooms are a fundamental element in the process of carrying out BPA using your Revit Physical Model. They are the element that dictates the majority of the geometry generated in your Analytical Model, as well as the holder of a great deal of the additional analysis parameters passed into your analysis software. Simply put, if a Room is not accurate, there is no way to get an accurate analysis model. With these accurate Rooms, things like block loads, lighting analysis, day lighting analysis, and computational fluid dynamics can be carried out with confidence. NOTE: Within the gbXML schema the Space is the equivalent to a Room. For the purposes of clarity in this paper we will refer to these items as Rooms in all cases.
Building Performance Analysis Using Revit Another situation where a Bounding Element is broken up into multiple surfaces is when there are multiple Rooms adjacent to it. In order to allow for situations where one adjacent Room is unconditioned, while the other is conditioned, the Wall is broken into two surfaces in the Analytical Model, see Figure 2 below.
Understanding the relationship between Bounding Elements and surfaces will help you interpret the Analytical Model thats produced from your Revit Physical Model.
1.3 Openings
The next element down in the Analytical Model hierarchy is the Opening. These are things like Windows, Doors, Openings and Skylights. These Elements are children of the surfaces generated from Bounding Elements, just like a Window is hosted in a Wall in the Revit Physical Model. Like Surfaces, Openings are represented by 2D surfaces within the Analytical Model. An example of these can be seen in Figure 3 below, where there are windows, doors and a skylight all properly translated from the Revit Physical Model to the Analytical Model.
Building Performance Analysis Using Revit Properly representing openings is critical to carrying out an accurate analysis, such as the <VE> daylighting analysis in Figure 4 below.
Building Performance Analysis Using Revit Understanding these surfaces will allow you to produce a more complete Analytical Model. NOTE: Within the <VE> Shading Surfaces are known as Obstructions. For the purpose of clarity in this paper, these items are referred to as Shading Surfaces in all cases.
With the concepts of the main Elements in the Analytical Model and their relationship to the Revit Physical Model now covered, we can move on to other important concepts.
1.6 Adjacencies
In order for the Elements in the Analytical Model to assemble into a logical representation of your Revit Physical Model, they must be put into context of their location in the building. This means determining whether a surface, and its openings, is exterior or interior. This is done by determining the adjacencies of a surface within the Analytical Model. The surfaces here include not only walls, but all other Bounding Elements like roofs and floors. If a surface has an adjacent Room on both sides of it, it is deemed Interior. If it has only one Room adjacent to it, then it is deemed Exterior. As previously mentioned, if a surface has no Rooms adjacent to it, then it is deemed a Shading Surface.
Building Performance Analysis Using Revit Analytical Room Volume The Analytical Room Volume (see Figure 7 below) is bounded by the center plane of walls and the top plane of roofs and floors. This Room volume is what you see in the preview window in the Heating and Cooling Loads dialog and with blue lines in the <VE>. Inner Room Volume The Inner Room Volume is bounded by the interior surfaces (see Figure 8 below). This Room volume is shown with grey lines in IES <VE>. It is not shown in the Heating and Cooling Loads dialog. It is computed when you actually start the loads calculation.
2.1.3 Calculations
In order to produce an accurate representation of a Rooms space, it is a best practice to have the At system computed height radio button set. Problems can occur if the At specified height radio button is set. This can be seen in the example to the right with an attic below a sloped roof. The At specified height radio button is set to 2 above level. This results in Revit determining the boundaries of the Room starting at 2 above the level. At 2 the sloped Roof is detected as a Bounding Element for the Room perimeter, and the Room geometry does not account for the entire attic space.
2.2 Rooms
Since Rooms are the parent of a great deal of the information held in your Analytical Model, there are very important considerations that must be understood if the produced Analytical Model is to be correct.
Obviously this result is incorrect and will result in inaccurate energy analysis results. As a general rule, it is a good practice to set the Upper Limit for your Rooms to the next level, and set your Limit Offset to zero. In the case of Rooms below Roofs, ensure the upper limit of the Room is set higher than the top surface of the Roof, this is covered in greater detail in the Roofs section.
The top surface of any Floor Slab will be seen as a Bounding Element for the Analytical Model. There is no setting to toggle this off. The location of the bottom surface of a Floor Slab relative to the Level it is hosted on determines how that Floor Slab bounds a Room. If the bottom of a Floor Slab is at the same elevation or lower than the level, then the top of that Floor Slab will represent the bottom surface of a Room defined on that level, see Figure 13 below on the left. If the bottom of a Floor Slab is at a higher elevation than the level, then the top of that slab will represent the top surface for a Room defined on that level; see the right side of Figure 13.
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2.3.3 Ceilings
Although Ceilings impact the volume of a Room in the Revit Physical Model, they are not used as Bounding Elements in the Analytical Model. Because the Analytical Model needs to be a complete representation of the Revit Physical Model geometry without voids, as covered in sections 1.6 and 2.2.3, Ceilings are not transferred to the Analytical Model. Allowing Ceilings to be Room bounding would result in many voids between Ceilings and the Level above, impacting the accuracy of analysis results. The solution to this situation is covered in the Building Voids section.
2.3.4 Columns
In order for a column to be included in the Analytical Model, the Room Bounding parameter must be set. This will impact the volume of the Rooms created in the model. Comparison of two similar Rooms shows the importance of this. In Figure 14 to the right, Room 1 has columns that are defined as Room Bounding, Room 2 does not. This impact on the Room boundary carries over to the Analytical Model as a reduced volume for the Room, since the column volume is subtracted from the total Room volume. Also note that columns do not have a center-line so the surface of the column inside the Room bounding Walls (effectively the inner surface) is used to calculate the Analytical Room Volume. This can be seen in the <VE> in Figure 15 below.
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Building Performance Analysis Using Revit You can see that the blue line indicating the Analytical Room volume does not pass through the middle of the Column. The full Column volume will be removed from the Analytical Room Volume in this case. There are some limitations associated with the use of Columns in your Analytical Model, refer to section 2.6.4.
2.3.5 Roofs
When specifying the Upper Limit for a space beneath a Roof, specify the Upper Limit above the top of the Roof. The Roof is a Bounding Element and the volume for attic spaces is calculated based on the Room bounding components. This will also ensure that there are no unnecessary Shading Surfaces in the Analytical Model due to the Roof. Verify Room Bounding is checked in the Roof Element Properties.
Building Performance Analysis Using Revit There is one exception, if the assigned material (Material parameter) for the panel has less than 3% Transparency, it will be treated as a solid panel. In situations where a user creates a Curtain Wall type, Curtain Panels will have no Material defined by default. These Curtain Panels will be interpreted as Windows in the <VE>, but keep in mind the 3% transparency requirement when setting a Material for the Curtain Panels.
2.6 Limitations
There are certain situations where there are limitations in the conversion of a Revit Physical Model to an Analytical Model.
Building Performance Analysis Using Revit When the <VE> imports the Analytical Model it seeks a one-to-one mapping between every inner surface and a corresponding outer surface in the Analytical Model. This technique is used to accurately simulate thermal transfers across Room adjacencies. It is possible to create elements in Revit that do not have a corresponding outer surface (on the wall center-line) for each inner surface. When this occurs for a Room, the Inner Room Volume is dropped and all calculations are performed on the Analytical Room Volume. This is shown in the <VE> by a Room with no Inner Room Volume visible. Such Rooms have a yellow symbol in the Room Browser, , and Rooms passed with an inner volume are shown blue, . We can see this in Figure 19, where on the left the Room configuration results in no Inner Room Volume being created in the <VE>. By reconfiguring the Rooms a bit, as shown on the right, an Inner Room Volume can be effectively created.
If the design intent is to have the Room configuration that results in no Inner Room Volume, then the analysis results may be impacted.
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Building Performance Analysis Using Revit If a license for <VE> has not been requested, when the <VE> is launched a dialog will appear that informs the user that there is not an active license. If the OK button is pressed, the <VE> will launch. As no license is held for the Sustainability Toolkit, these buttons will be unavailable so close this dialog. This will leave the model displayed in the basic <VE>.
3.2.1.1 Workspace
A wireframe view of the Analytical Model is displayed in the workspace. This can be viewed using the tools on the View Toolbar at the bottom of the screen. Rooms can be highlighted by selecting them in the Model Browser. They can be subsequently viewed without the rest of the model by selecting different levels of decomposition . This allows you to ensure details of the Analytical Model have converted as desired.
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About Revit
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