Assessment of the possibility of calculating the thermal performance of building heating systems using the Autodesk Revit software package

In connection with the Decree of the RF Government No. 1431 dated September 15, 2020, and the approval of the action plan (roadmap) for the development of the construction industry in Russia, the use of software systems for three-dimensional modelling in the design of residential and public buildings funded by federal and municipal funds has become a necessity. When designing engineering systems for such buildings, the Revit software package allows the thermal performance of heating facilities to be calculated based on an information model in automatic mode. In this regard, a comparative assessment of automated and manual calculations performed in accordance with the regulatory documentation adopted in Russia is required in order to identify the possibility of their use for designing efficient heating systems. On the example of a one-story residential building located in the city of Irkutsk, the thermal performance of the heating system was calculated using both the Revit software package and according to the generally accepted methodology. A comparative analysis of the results showed the insufficient accuracy of automated calculations. Therefore, the use of automated calculations can lead to the overestimated capital costs of construction and energy consumption of the building. The reasons for this inaccuracy may be associated with a lack of attributive information about the families of windows and doors developed by manufacturers. As a result, the software package fails to perceive these families as part of the constructive component of the information model.  However, the possibility of a system error in the Revit software package, which may distort further calculations, should not be ignored.

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