Building Information Modelling for Sustainable Building Design

B.Kaushik, P.Jayasheel Varma, A.Vasan

A study on Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been made with much consideration
towards the sustainability aspects of the building. The study aims at understanding the
underlying concept of BIM and the effective ways of implementing the BIM in various stages
of projects and how it would help in co-ordination of various industries in effectively
working as a group. The study also aims at using the BIM package in performing an energy
analysis with the prominent BIM tool Revit and publishing the results in the acceptable
format along with the conclusions that can be drawn from the results.

Introduction
Building Information Modelling referred to as BIM is an emerging approach to the design,
analysis, and documentation of buildings. At its core, BIM is about the management of
information throughout the entire life cycle of a design process, from early conceptual design
through construction administration, and even into facilities management. By information, we
mean all the inputs that go into a building design: the number of windows, the cost of materials,
the size of heating and cooling equipment, the total energy footprint of the building, and so on.
This information is captured in a digital model that can then be presented as coordinated
documents, be shared across disciplines, and serve as a centralized design management tool.
As explained earlier, BIM is not a software but a collection of software packages which helps in
the integration of various levels and aspects of a project. We now will look at the detailed
explanation about BIM. Building: Though B in BIM stands for Building, it doesn’t really mean
a physical building but it means as a verb, which means that it is a process and not just the
finished product and by process, it means that there will be many exchanges over the life of the
project. The majority of model inputs are going to be in the design and construction phases
and the majority of information outputs will be extracted during handover, use and asset
maintenance. Information: Any project that BIM deals with, is a packet full of data
and this ‘Information’ part deals with that packets of data. This data makes up the majority of
the project. It has basically all the details regarding the project. Be it, dimensions of the plans,
details and locations, the details of the ownership, the changes that have been made, the changes
to be made, the no. of floors, the details of the construction, all these components constitute the
‘Information’ part of a BIM project. Modelling: This is the Modelling part of a BIM project
where, the details of the project and the data collected for the project in the‘Information’ part
would be made as a unit here and is modelled in this part of project. By modelling, it means
that the data collected, will be given a visual 3D shape or form with the help of a BIM software
package such as REVIT, AECOsim, MIDAS Tech. This is the main part in a BIM project
which will make the design and analysis easier and coordination simpler.
Of all the countless advantages of BIM, the main advantages are given here as:
✓ It improves the understanding of the project for everyone involved in it.
✓ It lowers the cost by managing the risk, contingencies and reducing the conflicts.
✓ It improves the safety-by-design agenda where all the participants can interrogate
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 and validate the model.
✓ It helps create a model that is both Energy and Carbon efficient which will be a
massive incentive for the client.
✓ It helps in the better coordination of project information which paves way to clash free
work environment.
✓ It improves the productivity by supportive and collaborative workflow.
✓ It reduces rework as there’s no room for errors with the collaborative BIM workflow.
✓ It increases the speed of delivery of work by ensuring that the schedule is optimized at
all the stages of plan of work.
✓ It gives better outcomes in terms of reduced hidden costs, reduced adapting times for
different teams working on the same project.
✓ It improves the operational management of the job on site by assisting in
smooth management of the asset.
Literature Review
The c o n c e p t o f B I M w a s p r o p o s e d b y Professor Chuck Eastma of American
Georgia wave-tech College in 1982, Graphisoft Company developed software ArchiCAD
based on the concept of BIM, but Graphisoft called "Virtual Building” instead of "BIM" at that
time and in 1984 Graphisoft introduced technical concept of Virtual Building Model, for
architecture design by ArchiCAD software. VBM (Virtual Building Model) technology can be
regarded as the earliest presentation of BIM technology.
Bilal Succar et al. (2009) described briefly the workflow of the BIM along with a view of how
a BIM implementation in a project will reduce the conflicts and the way it increases the ease
of work. It also gives a need for the immediate implementation of BIM and also gives a view
on the possible research that can be carried out using BIM framework. Burcin Becerik-Gerber
et al. (2010) gave brief utility stats of BIM by various professionals and describes about the
innovative research trends using BIM in AEC through interdisciplinary endeavors and the data
collected showed that, the most research interests are in sustainable development, IPD and
building management. J.Wong et al. (2010) presented a review of BIM research and
achievement in AEC industry. They suggested the scope for future research in BIM. They
concluded that there is a need of new research works in BIM focusing on post construction
phase like facility management. Qing Liu et al. (2011) gave a brief description of uses of BIM
at different levels of project and has given a brief view about the implementation stage of BIM
in China. The uses of BIM as said by author in different stages of project such as Design
phase, Construction phase and Operation and maintenance phase were briefly given along with
a short description of BIM software development. Madhumitha Senthilvel et al. (2016)
gave a brief description of Pre-cast construction firms and the process that goes through the
precast construction. Then, a brief idea was given about how BIM can be applied on Pre-cast
construction and a model framework was devised based on previous research literature and
also a broad view was given on the possible research aspects regarding BIM in the precast
construction industry.

Sustainability
In ecological context, sustainability is the property wherein, biological systems remain
diverse and productive indefinitely. In the context of buildings, it is the ability of the structure
to reduce the environmental impacts caused due to it and to reduce the operational cost through
the course of its lifetime.

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Research Related to sustainability using BIM
Hung-Ming Chen et al. (2014) proposed a new BIM tool which will help in integrating the
solar energy system in to BIM as it will help in improving the sustainability index and
energy efficiency of the structure. The tool uses Autodesk Revit 2012, Revit API, EnergyPlus
and OpenStudio which will collaborate to act as a simulating media to create an efficient
energy model. A framework was suggested and is used to obtain the installation points for solar
panels, HVAC systems, etc. This framework can be used at any stage of the work and also
reduce the operational difficulties for the designers. Peeraya Inyim et al. (2014) gave an insight
about a framework of sustainable building design which utilizes a BIM extension to assess the
economic and environmental impacts of the building on the surrounding. The economic aspects
being the time and cost and the environmental impact being the Co2 emissions. SimulElCon is
used to establish the relationship between three objectives and utilizes the help of Multi-
Objective Genetic Algorithm to find out the Pareto set of optimal solutions that can be used in
the real time. The framework was applied on a real- time structure and the proof was presented
as a case study. Jeong-Han Woo et al. (2014) studied the potential for energy benchmarking in
building retrofitting by BIM and wireless sensor technologies. Energy benchmarking is the
critical step as it provides the baseline information where one can understand the energy
consumption of a particular project by making management plans and prioritizing potential
retrofit chances. Various sensors were installed to sense the energy consumed by means of
lightning, air conditioning. This is a tedious process wherein, the simulation data was compared
with the measured data, the energy savings were estimated. Shu Liu, (2015) implemented
MOPSO(Multi Objective Particle Swarm Optimization) and sustainability concepts in a
building project for the main aim of reducing the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and Life Cycle Carbon
Emission (LCCE) by taking those two as objectives and the variables as the window wall ratio,
wall type, external sunshade, glazing type and building variables. The LCC and LCCE are
defined based on the five constrained variables mentioned above. C.Zhang et al. (2015) tried to
develop a tool which works with conjuncture to BIM and helps in analyzing the sustainability
of the project undertaken. The plugins for the tool was developed using C# and Autodesk
Revit. NET API will help in facilitating the input process. The input data will be gathered
directly from the BIM model and the user will be asked to input additional essential data at
different phases of project lifecycle. The tool follows the standard rating system of LEED, 2000
as released by United State Green Building Council (USGBC). The tool provides the rating of a
particular entity of the structure considered and the collected data will be used to give the
overall sustainability picture of the structure. The tool provides an efficient way to evaluate the
construction process and also helps in diagnosing the energy consumption and achieving good
energy efficiency along with cost.

Problem Statement
By going through the literature review, it can be stated that thought the BIM implementation is
in the beginning stages in some countries, there is a much need for implementation in
sustainability sector. This paper tries to utilize the basic energy analysis in the Revit software
and ties to come up with the conclusions from the results that can be drawn. The following
methodology has been followed. A structure is selected and is modelled using BIM software
packages to get a brief idea about the software packages along with implementation for
carrying out the energy analysis. The selected structure is a hostel room in BITS Hyderabad. A
particular room is selected and is modelled in BIM package of REVIT and is sent to ROBO
Structural Analysis software for a structural analysis and design of reinforcement and the
reinforcement details are matched with a STAAD pro model. Then an energy analysis is carried
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out to get the energy profile of the selected structure under given condition of exposure to the
surrounding environment to obtain Annual Co2 emission, energy use intensity, etc.

Methodology
An architectural plan was made using Revit-2017 for a hostel room along with details of doors
and windows openings. Then, for the sake of structural model, the architectural model has been
linked into structural plan and the walls are excluded as they were not considered as load
bearing. Then some additions like beams were made to the structural model along with
foundation placement and slabs. Then, the analytical model was created with the help of
components of REVIT. The finally designed model in REVIT is sent into ROBO structural
analysis with the help of structural analysis linking in the Analyze tool bar and then the settings
of ROBO structural analysis were changed to match according to the preferences and
standard code settings were changed to reflect the Indian Standard codes. After the model
was imported into ROBO structural analysis, the load cases and combinations were suitable
applied and analyzed. Only the diagrams of bars for moment in “Mz” is shown to remove the
confusion. But, after analysis all the values of moments will be obtained and then the
reinforcement design part was run to design the reinforcement for each element. The
reinforcement design was carried out for each element separately and then the model in REVIT
was updated using the structural analysis tab in REVIT. The view shown is the view of
Wireframe view where in the reinforcement can be seen after updating the model after
designing with the help of ROBO structural analysis.

Fig 1 – Revit Architectural Model

Fig 3 – Robo Structural import

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To carry out energy analysis and to understand the properties of results of the analysis, a more
comprehensive structure is selected which contains many components compared to the
previous model. The model consists of wide variety of components and is a realistic case
where in the energy analysis could actually be studied which lead to selection of a different
model. The energy analysis is carried out with the help of Revit along with the inbuilt
Autodesk Green built Studio Design. The Energy Settings are modified to the requirements
such as the preferred location, the ground level settings, etc.
Then, the energy simulation is run with the help of tools provided in the tools section of the
analyse drop down which will provide us with t h e e n e r g y a n a l y s i s w h i c h c a n b e
accessed from the results and compare button in the Analyze dropdown. Green Building Studio
can be accessed from the results toolbar which is an online resource hard coded into working
along with Revit. The calculations are made according to the conditions that, the structure is
located in Boston and the lifetime of the structure is 30 years and the electric and fuel costs
given as an input.

Fig 5 – Energy Settings Fig 6 – Energy analysis results

Various other analysis can also be performed with the help of some additional data. The
additional details that can be obtained from this tools are Water Usage analysis, Photo voltaic
analysis, and LEED daylight savings. The tool also gives an option to get the output files which
acts as an input for different other tools such as: EnergyPlus, eQUEST, etc. the details of which
were discussed in the respective literature reviews. The analysis from Revit provides us with the
relevant results for all kinds of analyses.

Conclusions
From the study of the literature and software usage trials, it is understood that, the area of
sustainability in buildings has a huge potential for research and the software Revit itself
presents a huge information about the analysis along with a brief detailed analysis report. If the
tools being developed are implemented along with the traditional BIM using Revit, there’s a
huge scope in the future for the real sustainable development to be carried out as, the
software will help us know beforehand what will be the impact of a particular design on the
economic management of the structure, gives a detailed idea about resource consumption,
energy emissions, etc. It can be concluded that with enough access to the various energy
analysis tools being developed as per the literature review, it would just help in simplifying the
mandatory analyses to be carried out and also helps in providing the best solution for the
required energy standards.

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