Trusting Building Performance Simulation – call for papers
As codes and regulations become stricter, is simulation the right tool for compliance as well as sketching performance to assist design? Can building simulation address the competing demands and tensions that regulators, clients and designers place on it? If not, what alternatives could be appropriate?
This BUILDINGS & CITIES special issue seeks research reporting on quality assurance measures, case studies, user studies that address the development of trust in the performance calculations of designers. Papers are sought that describe the challenges, innovative methodologies, or strategies to enhance reliability and effectiveness. Overall, the papers should show evidence of improvement in guiding sustainable building practices.
The “performance gap” typically references energy performance. However, this special issue is open to all design assessment parameters: Indoor Air Flows, Daylight, Energy, Overheating and Acoustics.
An increasing urgency exists to provide a prediction of performance over the next 50-100 years. As carbon limits become more fixed on absolute performance, a consensus is needed on how to examine performance reliably and accurately – both for new buildings as well as interventions in existing buildings. Uncertainties need to be made explicit.
Possible topics
- Sources of uncertainty in building simulation and their impact on trust.
- Simulation alternatives – instead of many interconnected equations representing the building physics, perhaps design informed by an empirical performance database – whether PoE, case studies, statistics.
- Understanding and avoiding abuses of simulation.
- Calibration, validation, and accuracy testing of BPS tools.
- Problems arising from mis-use or mis-interpretation of simulation outputs (and associated professional responsibilities).
- Integrating BPS with measured data to reduce performance gaps.
- Improving modeling of complex systems such as occupant behaviour – is this appropriate for regulatory purposes?
- Improving the quality of simulation reporting – ensuring its relevance to design decisions, and socio-technical issues in operation.
- Improving modeller literacy and questioning tool design – should the user have to understand the calculation algorithm limitations in order to be a certified simulation user?
- Role of simulation in design, commissioning, and operations.
- Implications for energy code compliance and carbon reduction goals.
- AI integration with simulation tools enabling systematic learning from past simulations informing the next design or the next simulation.
- Compliance – the reliability and limitations of simulation for demonstrating regulatory compliance.
Guest editor: Michael Donn
Deadline for abstracts: 11 November 2024
Full details: Buildings and Cities – Trusting Building Performance Simulation
