Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM)

Research on Computational Building Information Modelling (BIM)-based Automated Green Building Evaluation System a GreenRE & Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) Collaboration.

Researchers from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) are collaborating with GreenRE on a research project titled “Computational Building Information Modelling (BIM)-based Automated Green Building Evaluation System”. The project is funded by the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia (MOHE) with a grant amount of RM180,000. The UTM research team is led by Assoc. Prof. Ar. Dr. Lim Yaik Wah from the Faculty of Built Environment and Surveying, and the industry collaborator GreenRE team is led by Ir. Ashwin Thurairajah. The aim of this project is to develop a computational BIM-based automated green building evaluation system prototype known as ‘BIMGes’. As BIM is an intelligent model, it can be integrated with computational algorithm to automate the data management, assessment, and documentation process for green building evaluation. Some of the Energy Efficiency criteria such as building envelope OTTV will be employed for the prototype development. The proposed prototype will be an innovative method of green building evaluation process using computational BIM. The research output will benefit the building designers, green building consultants, developers, facilities managers as well as researchers in the relevant fields. By providing a high level of automation, the research is expected to boost the development of green buildings for sustainable cities and communities.

GRE-UTM BIM Research Progress Report (December 2023) 

Assessment of Overall Thermal Transfer Value (OTTV) under the Effect of Adjacent Shading and Natural Ventilation a GreenRE & Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) Collaboration.

With the arising concern about climate change and energy crisis, various building performance assessment methods have been established to evaluate building energy efficiency. The Overall Thermal Transfer Value (OTTV) and Residential Envelope Transmittance Value (RETV) are the metrics developed to measure the average heat gain transmitted through envelope of non-residential and residential buildings respectively. The OTTV has been included in Malaysian Standard (MS) 1525 and made mandatory in Malaysia Uniform Building By-law (UBBL) Amendment 2012. However, the assumptions surrounding the assessment have raised questions to its reliability and actual efficiency in determining building energy use in the contemporary scenarios. The OTTV/RETV quantifies solar heat gain through a building’s external envelope. The standard calculation method takes into account shading contributions of conventional shading devices but does not account for shading contributions from adjacent buildings. Likewise, the relative contribution of naturally ventilated spaces to the OTTV/RETV performance has not been empirically substantiated to justify the exclusion in the by-law. Thereby, this research presents empirical studies and methods towards the improvement of OTTV/RETV assessment in Malaysia. Inventory of existing multi-block developments and buildings with air conditioning and natural ventilation spaces will be conducted to develop cases for building information modelling (BIM). Then, dynamic computer simulation of annual heat gain through building envelope and OTTV/RETV calculation of the selected cases will be performed for comparison. Finally, the impacts and correlations of adjacent shading and natural ventilation with OTTV/RETV performance will be established. The finding is expected to supplement the standard OTTV/RETV calculation to address the effect of adjacent shading in multi-block development and naturally ventilated spaces in a building.

GRE-UTM OTTV Progress Report (Dec 2023)