Towards Semi-Automated Replication of Floor Plan Layouts for Applications in Building Thermal Performance Evaluation

Despite its relevance to natural cooling, natural ventilation is rarely considered when optimizing building thermal performance. Reduced-order ventilation models, such as EnergyPlus’s airflow network (AFN) model, are ideal tools for design and analysis of naturally ventilated buildings because they enable rapid assessment of ventilation performance. However, such analysis requires replicating the building layouts of interest, a time-consuming task. We present a semi-automated methodology for replicating existing building layouts, an intermediate step for the rapid generation of AFN-enabled EnergyPlus models. This method converts user-input SVG files of floor plans to data containing the dimensions and connectivity of rooms using Python. We demonstrate the merits of our proposed methodology on a case study apartment unit, successfully replicating the plan layout while ensuring that the data will be suitable for EnergyPlus. Overall, our work aims to decrease the manual effort needed to evaluate and optimize the thermal performance of buildings, contributing to the growing movement to create more energy-efficient buildings.