Energy analysis Revit 2016

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I have been trying to make an energy analysis in Revit on a single family house that is under the ground (3 sides under the ground-cliff house). 

At Energy Settings dialog, at Ground Plane, if I put the level of the floor of the house, the energy analysis runs correctly. But if I put an upper level (1,5 or 2 meters above the floor level) the analysis fails.

If I export a gbxml from the same file (Ground Plane : 1,5 or 2 meters or even the flat roof) and upload this from GBS it runs!!

But I need the results from Revit analysis for my project, because I want to compare these with other results from other houses in Revit.

Can you help me? Is there something specific that I have to define? like materials of a green roof or walls with a layer of material "earth" at exterior side or conseptual masses around the building or something else?? ... I made many tries with different options but I can't understand how the same project runs in GBS and it doesn't run in Revit. Any suggestion?

[RDAOU · Accepted solution]

hello @Anonymous

It is hard to tell without specific input...

1. What are on those levels? What is are they hosting
2. Can u enable project base point and servey point then zoom extents? It could be an issue of duplicate or inverted  veriticies which results from wrong setting out out the model
3. Could be due to elements are too thick or thin.
4. It could be that an element or some elements contain unusual material thermal properties, causing an instability in the simulation. To check, go to the Advanced Energy Settings dialog and under Material Thermal Properties, disable "Detailed Elements"...Then try the energy simulation again. 
5. Any errors or prompts when the sim fails?
6. can you attach the journal straight after the analysis fails?

[Anonymous]

Hello

Thanks for your answer. I know that it’s difficult for you to understand and for me to explain what I want to do. I will try and hope this time to be more clear.

I have never been taught Revit. I have seen many- many videos and I have read many times text from  “help menu. ” So I may do silly mistakes.

-The house that I try to simulate is :

Floorplan:

It is underground at north, east and west. At south is over the ground and  there are doors there.

Section:

At floor level there is the floor of the house

At flat roof level there is a flat roof. The roof is green roof but I didn’t put materials for that (I don't know the right compination of materials for the sim) so I have use “cold roof” from library of Revit.

- I have never set “base point and survey point “. Is it necessary for simulation?

- At my initial tries I was designing toposurfaces but somewhere I read that toposurfaces don’t take part at energy sim. So I erased this from model that I use for energy simulation.  I also erased  (for the same reason) foundation, pads, roads and so on from model . Is this right?

The initial 3d model (two same single house buildings, one beside the other):

3d energy model:

-About the materials, I have used the same materials at other houses and I had never have problem with the run.

-The error of the simulation is:

At energy settings at ground plane I put : “flat roof”, but then the doors are underground!!  I think that there is the problem. How can I treat this? I want to show that the building is underground from 3 sides (North,East,West) but the side with the doors (South) isn’t.

Can you help me please? Thanks  in advance.

[RDAOU]

@Anonymous

From what you described and that error, I think it is a problem with the Energy Analysis Settings which you are using and not the model itself...I have no issues running an analysis on a cliffside housing or a tunnel or an underground bunker.

As for the topo being considered or not; that depends on the mode you are using and how the topo is modeled...As a Surface using the tool I do not believe that it is but if treated as a mass it will be I believe...Personally when working with underground facilities we do not use Revits Toposurface. Toposurface has no depth and we rather use massed sites.

Anyhow; if you cannot share the model and the gbXML file I can only recommend that you send that error (there should be an option which allows you to send it for review/support)

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

The problem was due to the Revit version I was using. (I hadn't done update at Revit 2016, as indicated me RDAOU at private message). Thanks.