Using Open BIM and IFC to Enable a Comprehensive Consideration of Building Services within a Whole-Building LCA

Sebastian Theißen, Jannick Höper, Jan Drzymalla, Reinhard Wimmer, Stanimira Markova, Anica Meins-Becker and Michaela Lambertz
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Sebastian Theißen: TH Köln (University of Applied Sciences), Institute of Building Services Engineering, Research Area Green Building, 50679 Cologne, Germany
Jannick Höper: TH Köln (University of Applied Sciences), Institute of Building Services Engineering, Research Area Green Building, 50679 Cologne, Germany
Jan Drzymalla: TH Köln (University of Applied Sciences), Institute of Building Services Engineering, Research Area Green Building, 50679 Cologne, Germany
Reinhard Wimmer: TMM Group Gesamtplanungs GmbH, Building Information Modeling R&D and Change Management, 71034 Böblingen, Germany
Stanimira Markova: RWTH Aachen University, Institute for Building Design and Realization, Research area Future Technologies for Comprehensive Building Sustainability, 52062 Aachen, Germany
Anica Meins-Becker: University of Wuppertal, Interdisciplinary Centre III / Institute of Building Information Modeling, 42285 Wuppertal, Germany
Michaela Lambertz: TH Köln (University of Applied Sciences), Institute of Building Services Engineering, Research Area Green Building, 50679 Cologne, Germany

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 14, 1-25

Abstract: Holistic views of all environmental impacts for buildings such as Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) are rarely performed. Building services are mostly included in this assessment only in a simplified way, which means that their embodied impacts are usually underestimated. Open Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) provide for significantly more efficient and comprehensive LCA performance. This study investigated how building services can be included in an open BIM-integrated whole-building LCA for the first time, identified challenges and showed six solution approaches. Based on the definition of 222 exchange requirements and their mapping with IFC, an example BIM model was modeled before the linking of 7312 BIM objects of building services with LCA data that were analyzed in an LCA tool. The results show that 94.5% of the BIM objects could only be linked by applying one of the six solution approaches. The main problems were due to: (1) modeling by a lack of standardization of attributes of BIM objects; (2) difficult machine readability of the building services LCA datasets as well as a general lack of these; and (3) non-standardized properties of building services and LCA specific dataset information in the IFC data format.

Keywords: open BIM; IFC; ER; LCA; LCA data; embodied impacts; building services; HVAC; MEP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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