Environmental Design

AFAIK Ecotect isn't a FEA program - not a dynamic modeller which recalculates the whole again and again in small time steps. If not FEA, so-called thermal modellers are just basically spreadsheets that have been tweaked empirically to come close to the results of a proper FEA simulation - however good their front end looks. Unless FEA, they are only accurate within pre-conceived and verified limits, whereas a true FEA program is more 'do-anything' from first principles.True FEA modellers are Tas (UK), esp-r, (UK) Hot3000 (Canadian using esp-r as engine) and EIS (UK). Not sure about Hevacomp's, which is based on a US program, reputedly very slow

Edit: see my post 17 Dec 08 - it's not FEA 

Hello Tom

Must admit "full" FEA is beyond myself at this point. I was tying to think along the lines of something that would allow me (or someone) to compile or "catalogue" various "eco-points" (depending on which environmental performance system they're using) as they are building up their model(s). I'm still more inclined to attemp this by building up a (Triforma) dataset, that includes various environmental performance factors/weightings than exporting the model(s) to various other apps for further analysis. 

The idea being that in the same manner that you can extract a door schedule, areas schedule or various quantities (tons of concrete or whatever), you could then "scan" the model(s) and it would total up your score: ...... you have achieved 87 points which is the equivalent to BREEAM  very good or Code for Sustainable Homes Level, 3, 4 or 5 (for example). I assume this would/could be output to a spreadsheet (or maye something more customised to your requirements) so that you could review the overall performance and see where you might be able to improve things or how to go about "trading off" various aspects of the design.

Must admit, I've only really started "playing" around with this (there's still stacks of other goodies to do things with!) so won't be able to provide any real results/feedback for some time (like next year at this rate ..... )

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Apparently now, Bentley own TAS ...........

http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Products/Bentley+Tas/

Seems to have slipped by quite quietly that one

This would seem like good news (for Microstation users particularly)

Looking forward to seeing what they come up with

Regards

Danny Cooley

Freelance CAD technician

<danny-cooley> wrote in message news:16303@communities.bentley.com...

Hello Tom

Must admit "full" FEA is beyond myself at this point. I was tying to think along the lines of something that would allow me (or someone) to compile or "catalogue" various "eco-points" (depending on which environmental performance system they're using) as they are building up their model(s). I'm still more inclined to attemp this by building up a (Triforma) dataset, that includes various environmental performance factors/weightings than exporting the model(s) to various other apps for further analysis. 

The idea being that in the same manner that you can extract a door schedule, areas schedule or various quantities (tons of concrete or whatever), you could then "scan" the model(s) and it would total up your score: ....... you have achieved 87 points which is the equivalent to BREEAM  very good or Code for Sustainable Homes Level, 3, 4 or 5 (for example). I assume this would/could be output to a spreadsheet (or maye something more customised to your requirements) so that you could review the overall performance and see where you might be able to improve things or how to go about "trading off" various aspects of the design.

Must admit, I've only really started "playing" around with this (there's still stacks of other goodies to do things with!) so won't be able to provide any real results/feedback for some time (like next year at this rate ...... )

------------

Apparently now, Bentley own TAS ...........

http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Products/Bentley+Tas/

Seems to have slipped by quite quietly that one

This would seem like good news (for Microstation users particularly)

Looking forward to seeing what they come up with

Regards

Danny Cooley

Freelance CAD technician

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http://communities.bentley.com/Products/Building/Building_Analysis___Design/f/5917/t/8684.aspx#16303

Thomas V, that's a good article from 'few years ago' . But Danny, is that what you meant? Seems Thomas is talking about embodied energy of building components, which can be simply totalled.

If you're talking about energy in use, that surely can't be assessed that way. Yes the physics attributes of individual components, as well as their geometry (shape and relative position) can be very neatly input as part of a BIM model, rather than manually addfing the physics attributes to the geometry within Tas or whatever. But the physics result (thermal behaviour) depends on the interplay between them and weather changes, sun path etc, which no BIM is capable of - yet.

A FEA program like Tas recalculates the way that heat is passed from one component (or part of a composite component) to another, time and again, iteratively, in small time steps. We have to look forward to Tas's capabilities being added to Microstation or BA.

 What's interesting beyond that, is the possibility of those physics attributes and the Tas capability becoming something that GC could handle, with non-geometric parameters (the physics attributes, weather changes, sun path etc) allowed to play just like geometric ones, governed by rules (Tas's algoriths, you might call it) to automatically generate thermally optimised buildings. I'm sure that fantastic possibility is what Bentley sees in Tas, and with Hevacomp they have access to another thermal modeller as well.

Presumably at heart GC is already a kind of FEA program, if it recalculates time and again in small steps. The time dimension (Thomas's 4d) is already here!

 There's discussion about this on the Green Building Forum  http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=1427&page=3#Item_21

Edit: see my post 17 Dec 08 - it's not FEA 

Stunning simulations of what Ecotect can do, standalone or allied to Autodesk products: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/sbe/creative_energy_homes/stoneguardC60/analysis_animate.html - and Ecotect isn't even a true dynamic FEA modeller like Bentley (EDSL) Tas http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Products/Bentley+Tas/ or Bentley Hevacomp simulator http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Products/Hevacomp+Dynamic+Simulation/

I'm looking forward to this and more, seamlessly in Bentley products, and hope it happens soon enough to catch this wave, which has already been going strong for a year

Edit: see my post 17 Dec 08 - it's not FEA