Research will try to coordinate BIM with energy software

One of the latest research projects to receive funding from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) will seek ways to ensure that two sorts of computer modeling technologies speak the same language when it comes to energy efficiency.

The research will be to develop interoperability between business information modeling (BIM) and energy simulation software. It will focus on features in buildings assumed to have the greatest impact on energy use, and then provide guidelines for describing thermal models extracted from BIM and the rules for extracting those models for whole building energy analysis applications.

Given that new computer technologies for representing buildings are expected to transform the processes for architectural engineering design services, it is imperative that standards for data exchange among disparate software systems be established, according to Mark Clayton, Ph.D., the principal investigator for the project at Texas A& M University.

Studies have shown that problems related to exchanging information among various building design software systems causes more than $16 billion per year of unnecessary expense, says ASHRAE.

Another research project that was recently approved by ASHRAE for funding was to develop Design Tools for Surface Water Heat Pump Systems in the geothermal energy field. That research will be done by Oklahoma State University and will take two years.