[Bldg-sim] Building materials data import to Energy plus

[Anna Shadrina]

Dear colleagues,

I am writing my Master thesis about the interoperability between ArchiCAD,
Revit and Allplan on one side and Energy plus on the other side.

My research is particularly focused on importing the correct materials data
into IDF. (Materials should contain roughness, thickness, thermal
conductivity, density, specific heat; be composed into constructions and
attached to the correct surfaces in the geometry.)

I am collecting data on the following aspects:

1. *Is there a tool that imports IFC to Energy plus?*

Simergy has announced that they are removing the import features because of
many bugs and Ecotect is not fully supported by Autodesk anymore. On the
official EP website it is stated that such tool does not exist.
http://energyplus.helpserve.com/knowledgebase/article/View/25/34/importing-ifc-geometry-into-energyplus

2. *Any experiences in the seamless import of the materials?*

3.
*Do you generally use the import/export, or do you normally redraw the
simplified geometry in Sketchup for your projects?*
My findings at the present moment are the following:

*- *gbxML preserves the most of material parameters for Energy plus but
only Revit supports the advanced export to the gbXML. ArchiCAD works via
the Cadimage plugin (available only for the 17th version at the moment).
This plug-in does not preserve the material properties. And Allplan does
not export gbXML, only IFCs. All of the architectural software producers
seem to work more in the area of integrated energy analysis rather than on
improving their export.

- two plug-ins for exporting gbXML to Energy plus were tested: Green
Building studio and Open studio for Sketchup. GBS assigns its own
constructions instead of mine (I am working on it) and OS imports
everything but does not assign the constructions to the surfaces.

Please share your experiences, comments and opinions on this topic. Any
suggestions are welcomed.

Thank you in advance,

-- 
Anna Shadrina

MSc student Building Science
Vienna University of Technology
Vienna, Austria
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