Sensor handling in Building Information Models. Development of a method and application on a case study

Considering the rapidly growing application of Building Information Modelling (BIM) for all Lifecycle stages of buildings and the use of BIM as a natural information source for Building Energy Simulation (BES) models, this paper presents a complementary aspect: The integration of handling of measured performance data into a BIM-based workflow. The proposed method facilitates the comparison of the actual, measured performance of buildings with the predicted performance, based on simulation results. It complements existing BIM to BES interface methods that help to transfer geometry and material information, by providing easier access to measured input-data (e.g. weather data and building occupancy) and measured performance. The method is applied to a full-scale test facility located on the Technology Campus Gent of KU Leuven (Belgium). The main aim here is to facilitate the calibration of BES models and the development, implementation and test of model- And rule-based fault detection methods (FDD) and model predictive control strategies (MPC).