Governments and industry are looking to university researchers for the tools to help them explore every aspect of building design through a lens of energy efficiency.
Governments and industry are looking to university researchers for the tools to help them explore every aspect of building design through a lens of energy efficiency.
University of Victoria civil engineering professor Ralph Evins is helping lead this important work. Evins and his team are tapping into machine learning to create a modelling tool that can quickly calculate the energy efficiency of any possible design and how design choices interact with one another.
How much difference might bigger or smaller windows make? Thicker insulation? A different type of heating system? These are big questions when designing for energy efficiency, and differ for every situation and location, which are also factored into the model.
Current computer simulations are impossibly slow, hampering the creative nature of the design process. Evins’ industry-supported PhD research gave him an appreciation for the private sector’s pressing need for fast solutions. Computer simulations that take an hour or more to run are not a good fit for a professional needing to quickly test a multitude of design elements and materials to see how energy efficiency is affected.
Continue reading at University of Victoria.
Image via University of Victoria.
