DesignBuilder April News

Webinar: Maximising Sustainability with Life Cycle Analysis

Time: 15:00-16:00BST – Wed, May 11, 2023

Join us for a free webinar on Maximising Sustainability with Life Cycle Analysis using DesignBuilder and One Click LCA. This webinar will show you how building performance simulation can be used in the context of Life Cycle Analysis to assess the whole life cost and carbon performance of viable design and retrofit options. Architects, engineers, building designers, and sustainability professionals interested in learning how LCA simulations can be used to minimise the environmental impact of buildings will find the webinar useful.

This webinar will cover:

A brief introduction to LCA and its significance in sustainable design
A demonstration of DesignBuilder’s LCA-specific model data and embodied carbon reporting
How DesignBuilder can help you identify design solutions that minimise both LCA and LCC
DesignBuilder / One Click LCA integration
By attending this webinar, you’ll gain practical knowledge that will be valuable in a world where reporting the long-term impact of buildings on our environment and economies is becoming increasingly necessary.

Don’t miss this chance to learn more about this growth area in our industry! Register for the webinar now and join us as we explore the world of LCA and its practical application using DesignBuilder.

Register Now!

Results Viewer v4 is Released

We are pleased to announce the latest update to our Results Viewer which brings several significant new features and improvements:

1. New “Comparison Metrics” panel provides statistics to help systematically compare data sets.
2. Supports display of data in CSV and EPW weather files as well as EnergyPlus ESO files.
3. Generate custom composite reports by adding or averaging 2 or more existing reports.
4. Graphical display of EnergyPlus summary table data.
5. Heat map for reporting hourly data in summary form and quickly identifying hot spots and design conditions.
6. Improved handling of data for multiple years.
7. Built as a 64-bit application for faster performance when loading large data sets.

An important theme with this release is the addition of a set of capabilities to support post occupancy analysis and model calibration. The new “Comparison Metrics” panel provides statistics (including those required by ASHRAE Guideline 14) which can be used to help systematically compare outputs and check for accurate calibration. This is supported by the ability to create custom composite reports by adding existing values which, for example, allows energy consumption to be summed in a flexible way. It is also now possible to load CSV files such as those exported from BMS systems for comparing against model outputs.

We encourage all Results Viewer users to download the latest version and take advantage of the new features today.

Down load results viewer v4.0

Top Tip: Creating Ground Adjacencies in DesignBuilder

Creating ground adjacencies is an important part of the energy modelling process, and DesignBuilder’s inbuilt intelligence simplifies the workflow by automatically assigning the appropriate adjacencies. This helps to ensure that the right boundary conditions are applied to represent the building’s surrounding environment in the simulations.

There are 3 ways to define ground adjacencies in DesignBuilder models:

1. Auto adjacency detection – By default DesignBuilder automatically sets a ground adjacency for all surfaces at or below ground level. External surfaces that are at or below ground level are considered to be adjacent to the ground. For surfaces that are partially above and partially below ground level, only the parts that are below z=0 are modelled with a ground adjacency.
2. Ground component blocks – Any surfaces (or part of surfaces) touching a ground component block are considered to be adjacent to the ground. This method is especially useful when the ground adjacent to the building is not a simple flat surface but includes different levels and sloped ground surfaces.
3. Adjacency model data – External surfaces can be defined as being adjacent to ground by changing the Adjacency model data on the Construction tab from 1-Auto to 3-Adjacent to Ground.

These 3 methods all apply to the 4 different ground modelling methods available in DesignBuilder, including the new advanced Kiva method for rapid modelling of the ground using 2-D ground domains. These methods are explained in detail in our recent ground modelling webinar.