What’s New in Revit MEP 2018 for Energy Analysis

Energy analytical model – outside air enhancements

Would you like to cover all internal gains, occupancy schedules, and outdoor air requirements with a single setting from a list of ASHRAE 62.1 activities? What if you could use the same data from your BIM model for more detailed energy analysis in simulation software like Autodesk Insight, Energy Plus, and Trane Trace, and easily export via gbXML?

Well, now you can with enhancements to the Revit 2018 energy settings. Outdoor air requirements can be defined based on the building or space type, and the resulting totals can be transferred via gbXML for energy analysis workflows.

Historically, there has not been a standard workflow to capture ventilation requirements within Revit based on the type of space. You had to define zones, then manually populate the rates on the zone, or use key schedules, which did not export to gbXML. With this new release, you can add the outdoor air characteristics to the space type and the building type based on your local code.

For a newly created zone or space, the outdoor air information generates from Space Type by default and is defined in Space Type Settings. For an existing zone or space upgraded from an older version of Revit, the outdoor air information is generated from the zone by default, and maintains the same zone outdoor air definition.

These settings, including the outside air requirements, can be exported to gbXML and read into simulation engines for whole building energy, heating, cooling, daylighting, and solar radiation simulation in Insight.

The icing on the cake is that you now also have the ability to define custom building and space types… no longer are you working with a fixed list, but you have the latitude to add types that suit your project needs.

Take a look at the outside air enhancement overview video for more detail.