Trial / Demo
Congratulations! You have completed your first energy model, and you recall the days and nights of navigating through the labyrinth of buttons within the ModelIT application. Feeling confident, you think that you have familiarised the workflow process of ModelIT and the next set of geometries or buildings will be a repetitive process of your previous experience. Not necessarily true! After using the VE for nearly seven years, I came to learn three vital points of the ModelIT application.
Lesson 1: Discovering the most efficient ModelIT process
Firstly, any experienced VE user will tell you that there are multiple ways of quickly modelling a geometry or a specific work order that is the most efficient for a given set of available geometry information. For example, there is a significantly different approach in modelling a repetitive layout of a high rise office tower with curtain wall envelope in comparison to that of a medium-rise residential tower with a different layout plan. With the many third party import and ModelIT built-in short cut functions, the ModelIT interface has made it very convenient for any user to approach modelling within VE from any onset of information.
Lesson 2: Modelling an Integrated Model is to have an Integrated Workflow
Secondly, it is not necessarily right to treat the application of ModelIT as a work in a silo without regarding the context of assignment of profiles, construction database and HVAC systems. For example, there are different approach in efficiently assigning the window construction of a conventional office with curtain wall envelope than that of a residential high rise with various window-wall systems with varying dimensions.
Or, perhaps the possibility of merging multiple spaces that share the same thermal profile or being served by the same airside system. This acquired knowledge will not work by merely focusing on the task of geometry modelling alone. Given some contexts, there are challenges when an energy model workflow is a collaborative effort of multiple individuals (e.g. one person does ModelIT, one person does Apache Profile and assignment, one person does ApacheHVAC). Extensive communication is required to streamline the information to ensure the following lesson.
Lesson 3: Simplification vs Accuracy
Yes, perhaps the most critical of the three learning points is this. If you are an architecture background individual with little or no exposure to energy modelling, it is intuitive to trace the model as what one will see. Nothing can be more mistaken than that. Knowing what to draw is equivalently essential to understand how to draw. A model with a lesser number of rooms and quantity of surfaces will reduce the burden of your machine in the simulation exercise.
Thus, the trade-off between simplifying the geometry of the model while ensuring that it will not affect any result substantially is the key for an efficient and reliable ModelIT model. For example, the irregular shape of a column that is only 0.5% of the office area can be ignored, considering the significantly increased quantity of geometry surfaces across the repetitive floors. Or, merging multiple rooms of the same thermal template such as electrical and pipe risers with the void space of lift cores.
In summary, it is inaccurate to portray a rule book on modelling workflow within the ModelIT application of the VE. However, the accumulated experience by working on various size, typology of project and variation details of information is the best teacher as you gain an intuition of the best workflow of modelling with the given circumstances. The term Integrated Sustainable Design is not new, and indeed runs parallel to the work of an Energy Modeller that capture all relevant input parameters across all disciplines.
At IES, we continuously find ways to develop a user-friendly interface for our VE. This focus includes the design of ModelIT application to cater to various workflow processes. One of the many examples is the Schematic Geometry Wizard and the HVAC Systems Wizard.
If you have any feedback on improving the ModelIT application, please contact support@iesve.com
If you want more information on our Lunch-N-Learn videos, or any advanced training session, please contact training@iesve.com for more details.
