CBG Consultants - Improved BIM Workflow for Thrayle House & Thomas Gainsborough School

CBG Consultants used IES Revit plug-in to improve its BIM workflow.

Key Facts

• Successful export of entire building shell
• Realised benefits of BIM4Analysis

CBG Consultants recently introduced the IES Revit plug-in into their working practice. Using the plug-in, CBG have discovered the time saving benefits of a BIM enabled workflow.

Thrayle House, London

Thrayle House is a large apartment block in London Brixton. CBG were tasked with bringing the Architects Revit model into the IESVE to carry out analysis on the performance of the building.

Challenges

• Revit model was actually a series of linked models; one for the shell of the building and then separate ones for each apartment.
• Exporting this model along with the balconies from Revit.
• Finding the correct room volumes; In the Architectural model some of the walls only went to ceiling height and ideally for the analysis model they were required to go to slab height.

Learning

• Corrected room volumes.
• Closed gaps in model.
• Linked models caused issues.
• Balconies didn’t export.
• Provides IES rooms with ‘inner volumes’.

CBG were able to overcome most of these challenges and discover the benefits of a BIM enabled workflow. The biggest gain came from being able to successfully export the entire building shell. Using ModelIT the team were able to easily divide the model and add all the correct geometry and windows and openings.

Thomas Gainsborough School, Suffolk

Again this project involved importing the model from Revit to IESVE.

Challenges

• Import or export error.
• Segmented rooms, diagonal lines over the face and not clean geometry for analysis.
• Distinguishing between windows and louvers. Vision was to have a structured opening with a fixed glazed panel next to a louver and the louver would provide the ventilation.

Learning

• Import error due to building being set up in phases: not considered in the architect’s model.
• Deleting Room Separators resolved segmentation issue and returned nice clean, simple geometry.
• Discovered issues caused by elements being set up as room bounding that shouldn’t have been. This created holes going through the entire building where columns were incorrectly set out. This, however was easily fixed.

On the whole CBG were able to overcome most of the challenges and discover the benefits of a BIM enabled workflow. The biggest gain came from being able to successfully export the entire building shell. Using ModelIT the team were able to easily divide the model and add all the correct geometry and windows and openings.

“Overall the integration between Revit and IESVE made modelling run a lot quicker and smoother. We have separate teams of Revit Engineers and IESVE Engineers so it really helped us to work together better, sharing our knowledge on both platforms. Features like the ability to transfer data and the IES solar analysis tools were particularly useful for these projects.The whole process really opened our eyes to the benefits of a BIM enabled workflow.”

Ross Thompson, Senior Sustainability and Energy Engineer

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