장점 : 어디미턴스 방식(admittance method)은 계산시간이 매우 빠르기 때문에 다양한 설계 대안 및 각종 재료의 변화에 따른 영향 등을 거의 실시간에 평가할 수 있다. 이는 설계초기단계에 매우 중요한 장점 중의 하나이다.   

또한 이러한 장점은 설계 초기단계에 여러 설계 대안들을 신속히 다양하게 상대적 비교를해야 하는 관점에서 볼때 매우 중요한 장점이 될 것이다. 

Creating thermal models

You can export either a conceptual mass model or detailed building model to Ecotect using gbXML – and then clean-up the geometry once in Ecotect (set surface normals, inter-zonal adjacencies).

Using thermal models for your specific building effectively in Ecotect requires a few thermal modeling tricks and an understanding of how zones affect the results. Creating valid geometry is required for getting useful results, and is outlined in detail here by Ecotect’s creator Andrew Marsh.

Heating and Cooling Loads in Ecotect

This video explains how to run thermal analysis to calculate building loads. Learn how to prepare your building geometry for thermal analysis, specify building systems, change material properties, and adjust operational assumptions. Then learn how to interpret the heating and cooling loads, and hone-in on design changes that can help you save energy.

Download dataset here (loads.zip)

Note the differences in the scale from other tools

Note that the scale of the heating and cooling load graphs is different in Ecotect than it is in Vasari and Revit. In this chart from Copenhagen, Denmark, you can see that heating loads are given as positive values.

These are not HVAC energy loads. Like in Vasari and Revit’s energy analysis, these values represent the amount of heating or cooling required, not the energy a HVAC system would actually consume to generate the required load.

Pay attention to underlying comfort assumptions. In Ecotect, you can choose to base these loads on defined temperature bands configured for each zone, and can take into account people adapting to the conditions with clothing and operable windows. Learn more >>

Also see the following video from the Autodesk BIM Curriculum on how to design for thermal comfort in Ecotect. It shows techniques for: setting up grids (thermal) in Ecotect; running a spatial comfort analysis; setting zone properties; determining resource usage; editing material properties.

• Additional resources from the Natural Frequency wiki
  • Heat gains and losses graph
  • Monthly heating and cooling loads for passively designed spaces + how thermal comfort bands are determined
  • Monthly heating and cooling loads for air conditioned spaces
  • Thermal Analysis and Energy Training for Ecotect

Passive Gains Breakdowns in Ecotect

To see where your building’s heating and cooling loads come from you should look at where the building is gaining and losing heat.

Passive Gains breakdown in Ecotect for a building in Nashville, TN.

The passive gains breakdown chart in Ecotect helps you understand what percentage of your gains and losses are coming from conduction, solar radiation, infiltration, and internal loads. You can see energy flow patterns in specific zones, and track those patterns over the course of the year.

In this video you’ll learn how to use this chart, and how changing variables in your building can help reduce unwanted energy gains to reduce cooling loads.

Download dataset here

Pay attention to the values on the axes. If you’re trying to reduce the heating loads of a space (minimize the positive y-axis in Ecotect’s loads chart), you’ll want to either increase heat gains or reduce heat loss (maximize the positive y-axis in Ecotect’s passive gains chart).

Understand the sources of losses and gains.  The losses and gains are categorized as conduction, sol-air, direct solar, ventilation, internal, and inter-zonal.  Learn more at the Ecotect Natural Frequency Wiki >>

One concept that may be new is Sol-air (Wikipedia), which is a way to approximate the effects of indirect solar exposure through building surfaces other than windows and skylights. While “Direct Solar” gains measures radiation through windows, Sol-Air measures the thermal effect of solar radiation through opaque surfaces like walls and roofs.

More on the Passive Gains Breakdown Chart at the Ecotect Natural Frequency Wiki.