Model View Definition (MVD) for thermal comfort simulation in conventional BEPS tools

Recent changes in peoples' lifestyles have contributed to a perceived improvement in their quality of life. However, this advance has been accompanied by a reduction in outdoor activities and reflected in issues of human health and well-being. When designing and creating a working or living space, the provision of thermal comfort for a building's occupants remains a significant objective but can be difficult to accurately quantify throughout design. Current demand for higher energy efficiency and improved indoor thermal comfort within the buildings sector have led to the use of Building Energy Performance Simulation (BEPS) tools. These powerful analytical tools allow evaluation of the indoor environment and energy performance at different stages of a building's life-cycle. However, integrating BEPS with Building Information Modelling (BIM)based building design tools is still limited due to a lack of standardised methods of information exchange between these domains. The paper presents a Model View Definition (MVD), or subset of BIM relevant to a particular business process, for thermal comfort evaluation using conventional BEPS tools. In doing so, this work allows a standardised exchange of data from BIM to BEPS tools, for instance EnergyPlus. The role of MVD is to extract the necessary data for this exchange process in order to achieve optimum and reliable results of thermal comfort, in adherence with the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) standard.