# Thermal Performance Visualization Using Object-Oriented Physical and Building Information Modeling
## 4 Methodology
### Verification  
We have conducted a case study for the verification of our TEPV prototype by creating a equivalent BIM model for BESTEST Case 600 (see Figure 7). The case study visualized the heat flow rate among the thermal simulation results for the wall components. After the BIM model was created, we generate the TEPI parameter into the project parameters (see Figures 2 and 3). As shown in Figure 2, the entire set of wall components provided heat flow rate results through the TEPI parameter. We executed the OOPM\(-\)BEPS tool to generate object-based thermal simulation results. Figure 5 illustrates some of the  
Figure 6: Workflow of the thermal energy performance visualization (TEPV). thermal simulation results and heat flow rate for the wall components for one year. The values from the graphs were translated into an Excel (CSV) file by the Dymola's export function. Our case study only utilized part of the heat flow rate; the results provided six stages for each wall, and we chose the sixth heat flow rate value for the case study. The BESTEST Case 600 building model is defined in [29; 30]. The detailed building description is as follows:  
* One room consists of a single thermal zone and its dimension is 8.0 m, 6.0 m, and 2.7 m for the length, width, and height, respectively. * The building had two south oriented 6 m\({}^{2}\) windows and no doors. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Material**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**Thickness (m)**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**Thermal Conductivity**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**Specific Heat**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**Mass Density**} \\  & & **(W/m K)** & & **Capacity (J/kg K)** & **(Kg/m\({}^{3}\))** \\ \hline \hline \multicolumn{5}{l}{Exterior wall (outside to inside)} \\ \hline Wood siding & 0.009 & 0.140 & 900 & 530 \\ \hline \hline \multicolumn{5}{l}{Fiberglass quilt} & 0.066 & 0.040 & 840 & 12 \\ \hline \hline \multicolumn{5}{l}{Plasterboard} & 0.012 & 0.160 & 840 & 950 \\ \hline \hline \multicolumn{5}{l}{Floor (outside to inside)} \\ \hline \hline \multicolumn{5}{l}{Insulation} & 1.003 & 0.040 & 0 & 0 \\ \hline \hline \multicolumn{5}{l}{Timber flooring} & 0.025 & 0.140 & 1200 & 650 \\ \hline \hline \multicolumn{5}{l}{Root (outside to inside)} \\ \hline \hline \multicolumn{5}{l}{Wood siding} & 0.019 & 0.140 & 900 & 530 \\ \hline \hline \multicolumn{5}{l}{Fiberglass quilt} & 0.1118 & 0.040 & 840 & 12 \\ \hline \hline \multicolumn{5}{l}{Plasterboard} & 0.010 & 0.160 & 840 & 950 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: BESTEST 600’s Material Specifications as Adapted from Judkoffand Neymark [29], ASHRAE [9], and Jeong [12]. Figure 7: BESTEST Case 600 Revit model. * The building envelope's material properties are shown in Table 1.
* The shade and internal heat gain of the building from occupancy and equipment was nonexistent. * The main floor of the building was above ground level, no attached to the ground. * The location of the building was Denver, CO, USA. * The building was lightweight, and the room temperature control set to 20 \({}^{\circ}\)C and 27 \({}^{\circ}\)C for heating and cooling, respectively. The experimental BIM model for the BESTEST 600 case was created using Autodesk Revit 2021 version [26] as a BIM authoring tool (see Figure 7), Dymola [28] as a Modelica development environment, and the LBNL Modelica Buildings library as an OOPM\(-\)BEPS solver. The solver tolerance for the thermal energy performance simulation was \(10^{-6}\), and the interval of the simulation was 3600 s for the year. After generating the external database for the heat flow rate information, we executed a TEPV for a one-year thermal simulation. Even the database provided 8760 different time snapshots for each wall, we retrieved only 12 for each wall in the visualization. The TEPV began the thermal performance visualization with the north wall and continued to from the west wall till east wall through south wall sequentially. Table 2 includes visualization of the TEPI values for one year.