Conference Paper

Proceedings of Building Simulation 2021: 17th Conference of IBPSA

Perspectives of building simulation in Brazil: Brazilian building simulation market landscape and the applicability of ASHRAE standard 209

Alberto Hernandez Neto ¹, Juliana Pellegrini Lemos Trigo ¹, Mônica Pereira Marcondes Cavaleri ¹, Ana Paula de Almeida Rocha ², Maíra André ^3
1 University of Sao Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
² FAE University, Curitiba, Brazil
³ Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil
⁴ University of Brasilia, Brasília, Brazil

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26868/25222708.2021.30562
Abstract: This paper proposes to investigate the Brazilian building simulation market landscape and analyzes the possible adherence of the ASHRAE Standard 209 guidelines to the national context, especially for the compliance of ASHRAE’s standard to the most used certification, labeling, and normative processes in Brazil. To accomplish these goals, two surveys were carried among building simulation practitioners, as well as among companies that request building simulation services in their projects. The purpose of such surveys was to evaluate how the simulation tools were applied in the Brazilian market, especially what kind of analysis was employed, to what end, and in what design phase according to the ASHRAE’s 209 guidelines. Furthermore, an evaluation of the survey’s results evaluation was carried out to serve as a roadmap to the draft of a national standard for building simulation applications like the ASHRAE 209. The results show that building simulation is mainly used for thermal and energy evaluation in the schematic design of construction documentation. It could be argued that certification, labeling, and normative processes have driven this trend, as they are indicated to be the company’s main concern. Additionally, there are signs of implementation of building performance simulation in earlier phases, however, they seem to be more focused on the evaluation of active systems and envelope materials. These aspects highlight the importance of a common guideline to standardize the practice and foster best practices to all phases, earlier and after executive stages, in the same way as the ASHRAE 209. The dissemination of this analysis and the proposed standard may also contribute to making companies aware of the advantages of using computer simulation during the design process and throughout the building's life cycle. Furthermore, the emphasis on thermal and energy analysis draws attention to the need for a more comprehensive approach that can include other sorts of analysis, such as daylight, air quality, microclimate, acoustics, passive bioclimatic solutions, and others in the same framework and workflow.
Keywords: Standard application, certification process, professional qualification
Pages: 1742 - 1749
Paper: