A common data environment for HVAC design and engineering

Mikki Seidenschnur (Corresponding author), Ali Kücükavci, Esben Visby Fjerbæk, Kevin Michael Smith, Pieter Pauwels, Christian Anker Hviid

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

19 Citations (Scopus)
227 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry is transitioning toward using cloud-based Common Data Environments (CDEs) with interlinked BIM models. A CDE that engages all stakeholders of the building's design, construction, and operation phases represents the outset of BIM maturity level 3. This article introduces a CDE called Virtual Commissioning (VC), capable of commissioning an HVAC system before the physical commissioning of the HVAC system. The FSC diagram is introduced, to represent an HVAC BIM model within the VC CDE, and the Revit to FSC exporter, to serialize an HVAC object model from Revit to the FSC diagram. Three microservices were developed to exemplify the ease of developing independently scalable solutions for the VC CDE. Furthermore, the article proves that Modelica simulations can be run, using the microservice architecture of the CDE. To test the robustness of the system architecture for the CDE, two example models were introduced, one simple and one with a high level of complexity. Transferring the example models from Revit to the VC CDE was successful. Finally, in the roadmap for future development, it is proposed that future work should focus on using the CDE for advanced hydraulic simulations, using Modelica and Spawn-of-EnergyPlus.

Original languageEnglish
Article number104500
Number of pages16
JournalAutomation in Construction
Volume142
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Funding: This work was funded by the Ramboll Foundation and the Innovation Fund Denmark (grant 9065-00266A). The use case test model in Section 4.2 was provided by TU Eindhoven. We would like to acknowledge the work of the reviewers of this manuscript for improving the quality of the manuscript with thorough and constructive comments on content and writing.

Funding

Funding: This work was funded by the Ramboll Foundation and the Innovation Fund Denmark (grant 9065-00266A). The use case test model in Section 4.2 was provided by TU Eindhoven. We would like to acknowledge the work of the reviewers of this manuscript for improving the quality of the manuscript with thorough and constructive comments on content and writing. Funding: This work was funded by the Ramboll Foundation and the Innovation Fund Denmark (grant 9065-00266A ). The use case test model in Section 4.2 was provided by TU Eindhoven. We would like to acknowledge the work of the reviewers of this manuscript for improving the quality of the manuscript with thorough and constructive comments on content and writing.

Keywords

  • BIM level 3
  • Building information modeling
  • Common data environment
  • HVAC
  • Object models

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