An Intelligent Front end Building Energy Simulation on Micocomputer Environment

This paper discusses recent efforts to develop an intelligent front end (IFE) for a building energy simulation model using a readily available expert system shell. Currently a number of dependable energy simulation models exist for the energy assessment of buildings. However, use of these simulation models involves one problem with respect to the data input process. Usually, detailed building energy simulation models require somewhat rigorous input information from users regardless of the design stage or application domain. Thus, utilizing databases and rulebases properly developed for intelligent input process, an IFE can be designed to interface between the user and a detailed building energy simulation model. With this IFE approach, energy simulation models will be more easily accessible by building designers to test their design hypotheses during preliminary design stage. This also minimizes the involvement of the energy specialist at every stage of energy simulation. This study constitutes one step toward the development of integrated computer-aided building design (CABD) system, for which there is currently much effort being made by many different research sectors.