The current effort to prioritize energy efficiency and energy performance improvement in buildings is crucial to reduce the high CO2 emissions and energy consumption of the building and construction industry. In this context, integrating building energy performance simulation (BEPS) into the early stages provides opportunities to influence the actual building performance at an early stage. However, the major challenge for BEPS in the early design stages is the uncertainties of design parameters required for detailed energy simulation. Hence, this study represents an attempt to shift BEPS into the early design stages by developing a framework for parametric BEPS with sensitivity analysis (SA) originating from early design Building Information Modeling (BIM). A novel closed-BIM approach integrating Autodesk Revit, Rhino.Inside.Revit, and the SALib package is introduced. The major findings emerged from the study were as follows: (i) A framework of BIM-based BEPS was developed. with quick, robust, and automated geometry transformation and semi-automated semantic data transformation was developed. (ii) Early design BIM models at Building Development Level (BDL) 3 provided sufficient information for detailed energy simulations. (iii) The interpretation of SA results, including differentiation of influential parameters and parameter rankings, indicated SA should be performed on the simulation output of BIM model at each BDL. This thesis validates the advantages of utilizing BIM models as the core data models for BEPS in the early design stages and contributes to the general knowledge of BIM-BEPS interoperability and SA for BEPS. For future enhancements of the study, the author recommends increasing the simulation spaces, conducting more sophisticated SA methods, and integrating Machine Learning into the current workflow.     «

The current effort to prioritize energy efficiency and energy performance improvement in buildings is crucial to reduce the high CO2 emissions and energy consumption of the building and construction industry. In this context, integrating building energy performance simulation (BEPS) into the early stages provides opportunities to influence the actual building performance at an early stage. However, the major challenge for BEPS in the early design stages is the uncertainties of design parameters...     »