analysis

The Residential HVAC Load Calculation Extension software system is a residential and light commercial HVAC load calculation software package based upon the ASHRAE 2001 Fundamentals algorithms (Chapter 28). This program is geared specifically toward the design/build mechanical contractor, design mechanical engineer, and architects.

The purpose of this software is to provide the user with total cooling and heating loads for a building so that they may properly specify the correct size HVAC equipment (whether it is a packaged rooftop unit or a boiler).

Autodesk Ecotect can measure how fundamental criteria, such as solar, thermal, shading, lighting, and airflow, will affect building performance in the conceptual and detailed phases of design. This capability to forecast building performance over time better equips architects and engineers to deliver more energy efficient and sustainable building designs.

Autodesk Ecotect is a separate program and is not integrated into AutoCAD or Revit. It does the calculations using the gbxml analysis data that is exported from the BIM model. So you need to setup your model with rooms if you're using Revit Architecture, and with spaces if you're using Revit MEP.

Below is a white paper on how to prepare your BIM model for the export to the gbxml file.

Building Performance Analysis Using Revit Whitepaper

Vico Software announced that its 5D Virtual ConstructionTM solutions and services will be integrated with Autodesk's leading technology and solutions for the AEC industry. With the adoption of BIM accelerating, it is advantageous for General Contractors and Owners to have the combination of Vico's integrated 5D capabilities within the Autodesk solutions environment.

According to Clay Freeman, chief product officer at Vico, the initial focus of the partnership has been integrating Vico's Virtual Construction Suite with Autodesk Revit for Building Information Modeling. "We have a growing number of customers requesting that our virtual construction solutions work in conjunction with an Autodesk Revit model," says Freeman. "Today we are happy to announce that the integrated solution with Revit is demonstrable, and our intent is to support a wider range of capability offered by multiple Autodesk products in the future."

Together the solutions from Vico and Autodesk will enable building owners, general contractors, and construction managers to produce:

• Constructability and Coordination
• Model-derived quantities and location-based quantities
• Optimized project schedules
• Model-derived cost estimates

Vico has not announced a date for general availability. Freeman adds, "Integrating our virtual construction solutions with Revit is a very high priority, and we will be going to customer beta test soon. Importantly, our internal Virtual Construction Services team is already contracting work on projects using Revit models in conjunction with our software, so we are quite confident in the quality of the integrated solution."

Vico will publicly debut the integration of its Virtual Construction solutions and Autodesk Revit at the Autodesk University Conference next month. To see the Revit-based Virtual Construction in action, visit Vico at Booth 397 at Autodesk University, December 2-4, in Las Vegas.

Vico Software's award-winning Virtual Construction™ software and services help building owners and general contractors reduce risk, manage cost and shorten project schedules.
Vico Software’s 5D technology provides unprecedented integration of design, construction and management processes, thus improving project predictability - providing early identification of constructability problems; and synchronizing design, cost and schedule. With over three hundred customers and more than two hundred projects completed, Vico Software has a proven track record of delivering results.

Autodesk announced that the company is making two extensions for AutoCAD MEP and Revit MEP available to mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) engineers to design more efficient building mechanical systems. The MEP Analysis Extension, available as a free 30 day technology preview from Autodesk Labs, is a set of 25 utilities that MEP engineers can use to better understand how a building system will perform before it's built, ultimately helping MEP engineers reduce energy costs and environmental impact while improving the performance of building systems. The HVAC Load Calculation Extension, available for Autodesk Subscription customers of AutoCAD MEP and Revit MEP, performs peak cooling and heating load analysis for commercial buildings so that engineers can properly size HVAC equipment. Both extensions can function as stand-alone applications, but also work in conjunction with both AutoCAD MEP and Revit MEP.http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/mep_analysis_extension/The MEP Analysis Extension calculates rule-of-thumb cooling and heating loads for commercial and residential buildings, calculates total R-Values for walls and roofs, determines psychrometric properties of air, and more. Running these types of calculations through the MEP Analysis Extension can help MEP engineers reduce error and waste, potentially saving energy costs, the company states. The MEP Analysis Extension also contains utilities for sizing duct work, piping, and HVAC systems, helping engineers and architects identify the most appropriate building equipment early in the design cycle. The following utilities are included in the MEP Analysis Extension:

• Metric to English units converter
• single-state psychrometric calculations
• mixed-air psychrometric calculations
• duct sizing calculations
• ASHRAE duct fitting pressure loss calculations
• general pipe sizing
• hot/chilled water pipe sizing
• steam pipe sizing
• low-pressure gas pipe sizing
• high-pressure gas pipe sizing
• refrigerant pipe sizing
• fan cost analysis
• fan curve analysis
• pump curve analysis
• rule-of-thumb commercial HVAC load calculations
• simple residential/light commercial HVAC load calculations
• swimming pool heating calculations
• u-value calculations
• gbXML parser
• wire sizing utility
• glass moisture condensation
• life cycle cost analysis
• a super calculator for complex equations
• manage HVAC equipment lists
• manage climatic weather data

The HVAC Load Calculation Extension is a comprehensive HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning) load calculation software tool that determines building peak cooling and heating loads based upon current calculation techniques from ASHRAE. Using the results from the software, engineers can properly size cooling and heating equipment without oversizing such equipment, which often results in wasted energy. The Load Calculation Extension works as a stand-alone application, but also integrates easily with BIM modelers such as Revit MEP. The first utility is a “Duct Sizing Calculations” utility that performs duct sizing based upon air-flow, velocity, duct material type, and additional inputs. The results contain duct size dimensions (for rectangular, round, or oval shaped ducts), pressure loss values, and other pertinent information. One convenient feature is the “slider-calc” functionality that allows instantaneous results as the user ever-so-slightly increases or decreases different values using a slider control:The second utility is the “Duct Fitting Pressure Loss Analysis” utility that allows engineers to determine the pressure loss in an individual duct fitting (such as an elbow or wye). Using these results, the engineer can determine the total pressure loss for a duct system. Some of the inputs that are required by this utility include the air flow, duct inlet and outlet dimensions, and air temperature. The final calculated result includes the total pressure loss through the duct fitting.An engineer can use a combination of the above utilities to design simple duct systems in a building, ensuring that duct runs and air handlers are properly sized so that energy is not wasted on powering oversized fans.The MEP Analysis Extension is available as a free technology preview from Autodesk Labs. Visitors to Autodesk Labs are encouraged to experiment with inventive new tools and provide feedback to the Autodesk team. The HVAC Load Calculation Extension is available to customers of AutoCAD MEP 2009 and Revit MEP 2009 on Autodesk Subscription and is subject to Autodesk Subscription terms and conditions. The extension is currently available in English only, but will operate with all language versions of AutoCAD MEP 2009 and Revit MEP 2009 software. The extension will run through October 31, 2008.Available as a Technology Preview feature, the Extension is programmed to expire within 30 days of installation. They are offering this extension to get feedback to help them make better products and technology, and it plays an important role in determining the future of the Extension. Tell them what you think!

http://www.squ1.com/SAN RAFAEL, Calif., June 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- As part of its on-going commitment to support the practice of sustainable design and green building in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industries, Autodesk announced another acquisition to improve building performance analysis in the building information modeling (BIM) process. Autodesk announced that it has completed the acquisition of substantially all the assets related to the Ecotect software tools for conceptual building performance analysis from both Square One Research Ltd. and Dr. Andrew Marsh.The acquisitions of Ecotect and the Green Building Studio assets will support Autodesk's vision to deliver software that enables architects and engineers to design more sustainable projects. With improved building performance analysis capabilities, Autodesk will be uniquely positioned to offer a comprehensive suite of software solutions for sustainable design and analysis, enabling a BIM process that can facilitate cost-effective design and delivery of high-performing, resource-efficient buildings and infrastructure.The Ecotect tools can measure how fundamental criteria, such as solar, thermal, shading, lighting, and airflow, will affect building performance in the conceptual and detailed phases of design. Their capability to forecast building performance over time better equips architects and engineers to deliver more energy efficient and sustainable building designs.ECOTECT is a complete building design and environmental analysis tool that covers the full range of simulation and analysis functions required to truly understand how a building design will operate and perform. It finally allows designers to work easily in 3D and apply all the tools necessary for an energy efficient and sustainable future. ECOTECT: Features in detailECOTECT offers a vast range of modelling, visualisation and analysis features. The following links provide detailed information about the different capabilities of the program and how they are implemented and applied.Autodesk Ecotect can measure how fundamental criteria, such as solar, thermal, shading, lighting, and airflow, will affect building performance in the conceptual and detailed phases of design. This capability to forecast building performance over time better equips architects and engineers to deliver more energy efficient and sustainable building designs.ECOTECT: Lighting DesignECOTECT uses the BRE Daylight Factor method for daylighting calculation and the Point-to-Point method for electric lighting. For more detailed analysis you can export your model directly to tools such as DAYSIM and RADIANCE.Lighting Analysis ECOTECT now includes a Lighting Wizard to guide you through the process of calculating light and daylight levels in your building. You can calculate daylight factors and illuminance levels at any points in your model or, as shown above, over the analysis grid. Geometric and material information in ECOTECT can be exported directly to RADIANCE for a physically accurate lighting simulation. Using the Radiance Image Viewer that is part of ECOTECT, you can easily generate contoured or false-colour lux and DF images. Once you have calculated daylight factors in your model, you can use ECOTECT's advanced daylighting features to determine potential savings due to daylight-linked lighting controls or export directly to DAYSIM for a detailed analysis of daylight autonomy. ECOTECT allows you to edit or import the IES profiles of different lights and luminaires, displaying them directly within the context of your model as you design your lighting system. These profiles are based on user-definable design illuminance levels set for the zone to which the lights belong, showing illuminance contours as a volumetric boundary at which the required zone illuminance is exactly met by each light. ECOTECT: Ventilation & Air FlowECOTECT allows you to generate both the geometry and analysis grids for export directly to computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools such as NIST-FDS, Fluent and WinAir4. After the calculations in these tools are complete, it is then possible to import results back into ECOTECT for display within the context of the original model. If you set up a 3D analysis grid within your model, ECOTECT can export this information directly to a range of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools, the results of which can then be imported. Once you have the results imported back into ECOTECT, you can choose many different visualisation and persentation options. This can even be viewed as volumetrically as you move about in 3D. The same processes can be used to look at air flow both through and around buildings or complex urban environments. Prevailing Winds Using data in the hourly weather file, ECOTECT can overlay wind speed and direction directly on top of the current model, making it especially relevant to natural ventilation and wind shelter strategies. This plot can also show temperature, humidity and rainfall, over any date and time range. Plots of prevailing winds from weather data, showing annual wind frequency and speed (left) and summer wind temperatures (right). VentilationThe thermal analysis routines in ECOTECT are based on the CIBSE Admittance Method which does not require detailed air-flow and ventilation information. However, as you can see from the Thermal Gallery page, ECOTECT can be used as a pre and post processor for external computational fluid dynamics tools that fully consider air flows.You may also be interested in the gallery pages, for more examples of ECOTECT in action.

• Shadows & Reflections
• Shading Design
• Solar Analysis
• Lighting Design
• Right-to-Light
• Acoustic Analysis
• Thermal Analysis
• Ventilation & Air Flow
• Building Regulations
• Resource Management
• Visualisation & Import / Export
• Gallery
• Screenshots

Upgrades For Existing License HoldersVersion 5.60 uses a very different license system, however you should be able to upgrade quite easily. If you go to http://ecotect.com/support , near the top should be a link with a title relating to finding your lost activation details. The resulting page will show you how to obtain your new activation code and download the very latest version that you can activate.