Assessment of the building components in the energy efficient design of tropical residential buildings: An application of BIM and statistical Taguchi method

With the growing energy and economic crises, the need for optimization of energy consumption in the design and construction of buildings has recently become even more significant. This study aimed to determine the best combinations of building-envelope materials with the consideration of influential and uncontrollable factors for energy-efficient design in Malaysia. Residential buildings in Malaysia consume a significant amount of electrical energy for air-conditioning purposes. A typical one-storey terrace house was selected as a case study, and building information modeling (BIM) applications were used to simulate its energy performance. The selected case study was modeled using the Autodesk Revit Software and exported to the EnergyPlus software for energy analysis. In order to optimize the number of examinations in the simulation software, the effect of noise factors was assessed using the Taguchi method. The current energy-consumption patterns were identified and converted into the optimized options in component types. The results of this novel approach provide appropriate information about the performance of the modified energy-efficient material in building components with consideration of noise factors to achieve more reliable outcomes. It was concluded that the appropriate selection of ceiling, window, wall, roof, and floor components could greatly increase energy efficiency in descending order.