topic Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner in Sustainable design

Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

Tom Krowka — Thu, 11 May 2023 08:22:53 GMT

Anyone know where one can find additional values of materials in "k", thermal conductiivity, density, and heat capacity for typical materials in the US......like 1/2" gyp board, 5/8" fire rated gyp. board, etc.

Also, the materials library in Ecodesigner are hard to understand. For instance, why are there four different types of concrete.....four different k values.

Some help with the material catalogue would be good. Most materials I look up online have U values, not k. How can I translate between units.

It seems like a good tool, but without the capability to accurately set up material assemblies.......well it will be garbage in.....garbage out.

Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 11:14:35 GMT

Let me share my experience Tom,

When I (Graphisoft AUS) was working on ArchiCAD 16 Australian Template with David Shorter (AUS Strategic technical Manager), We had exactly same problem. "thermal conductivity" values in INT version of ArchiCAD wasn't correspond to the values in AUS.

I think, the differences are coming from, testing conditions, such as climate, location, method, and "who is testing" so I started to collect local datas from:
1. Local simulation tools' database
2. Local manufacturers specification (picked couple of major company's data and I used the mean value)
3. Government standard values.

It took me about 2-3months to get typical AUS construction database and still working on this to update this values in the next version.

In terms of density, and heat capacity, to be honest, It was difficult to find relevant indicators, so I decided to reference the values in the standard Archicad database. (but I found most manufactures had this data in their specification).

as a result, We have completed the first version of thermal value localisation into AUS standard template.
We then created new fills with local "k" value and deleted some cover fills with no thermal values.

When I saw Bimcomponent feature in AC16, I was hoping to have similar concept of cloud system where we can post thermal values and share them. Eventually, manufacturers will be in charge of this database and can promote their products at same time.

Hope this information helps,

Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

Tom Krowka — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 14:55:51 GMT

So........really doesn't help the immediate situation. Have looked at the U value override......but not really tried it out. I think one has to have the BEM built with composites, then are able to assign a U value to the composite via the override.

Have you any insight into this?

Thanks.

Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

gpowless — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 10:47:16 GMT

The most reliable source for material u-coefficient values would be ASHRAE ( http://www.ashrae.org/home/ ) but I have always found their stuff a bit pricey. Even still if you need standards and accuracy they would have the publications to back it up.

Another source that I used to refer to years ago was the American Graphic Standards. My older copy contains an number of materials and U-values.

Hope that helps.

Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

Tom Krowka — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 15:05:56 GMT

Unless I'm not seeing something, there is no way to insert U or R values in the material catalogue.
You can, however, insert the U or R value for an entire wall, roof, etc. assembly once you have the model built, and open the Energy Evaluator. I believe I will employ that workaround.

Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

Barry Kelly — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 02:12:54 GMT

Tom wrote:
Unless I'm not seeing something, there is no way to insert U or R values in the material catalogue.

Not in the materials setup.
But if you go to the fills setup then you will find a "Thermal Properties" section there.

The materials are just an image/colour applied to the surface of an element.
It is the fill used in plan/section that contains all the thermal information.

If you set up all your fills with their thermal properties then your composite walls will automatically get values based on those settings (if they use those fills).
If not then you will be prompted to add the values in (you will see a yellow triangular warning symbol).
You can select that and then click on the "3 dot" button to add propeties to the fill or you can click on the red padlock and override the values for the entire wall.

Barry.

Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

MMontgomery — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 18:03:48 GMT

I just finished the Eco-designer webinar a few minutes ago and this was covered somewhat, but not specifically..

I am working on our company template to include the thermal values of various materials we typically use such as sheathing, batt insulation, gypsum board, etc. According to the webinar, the Materials Catalog cannot be edited (making it rather useless for the most part), so creating standard thermal properties needs to be done in the 'Fill Types' Thermal Properties dialogue.

Not being familiar with thermal property calcs, would a single set of Thermal Property values for say, the 09|Gypsum Board fill, work for the various thicknesses of gypsum board, or would I need to create a separate fill using separate values for 1/2", 5/8", 3/4" gyp board?

Would this hold true for all materials, or are there some materials that have properties that are not consistent through various thicknesses?

My assumption is that a single fill would be appropriate but I would like to verify that.

Another problem is that I have a very difficult time trying to find the thermal properties of many products. It might be my ignorance of the subject, but many times it may give Heat Capacity and Thermal Conductivity but not Density or any combination like that. Anyone having luck finding all the values they need to accurately fill out the information?

Thank you!

Mike

Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

Laura Yanoviak — Thu, 08 Aug 2013 16:26:54 GMT

www.esru.strath.ac.uk/Documents/89/thermop_rep.pdf

This is the best document I've found to date. Does anyone have any other sources they can add?

Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 21:11:53 GMT

Thanks you so much for the precious information Laura!

With my experience and the others, Many simulation users are in dilemma with these values because the thermal property values are all different by who tests it, where they take the test, how, and other testing conditions.

I have tested few standard composite structure's U-value between Ecodesigner(energy Evaluations), local manufacturer's data and Australian standard value and they are all different by upto 30%.

Again, thanks for the reference information, I will update some of AUS thermal properties in the next template edition.

Cheers,

Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

Laura Yanoviak — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 21:37:48 GMT

Yes, it's a little disconcerting that there doesn't seem to be a reliable database. And 30% is a significant discrepancy! I have not had the opportunity to test EcoDesigner to the extent to know how this affects the output.

Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 02:48:39 GMT

Any ideas how to approach the modelling of an insulating membrane like sisalation (an australian foil facing) or the bubble wrap type insulations like Aircell ?

Cheers,
Hugh

Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 05:01:01 GMT

Hugh wrote:
Any ideas how to approach the modelling of an insulating membrane like sisalation (an australian foil facing) or the bubble wrap type insulations like Aircell ?

With Sarking(Sisalation or Thermal Break)and if its just thermal foil, I will just exclude it from composite structure(it has very small thermal conductivity and the thickness is less than a mm) or if you are considering using high performance Sisalation, I would use "Override" option from EE setting's dialogue.

If you are considering Air cell-Insulation break, I will add new Building material and apply manufacturer's physical property. I will do some research and add couple of them into AUS template with next release.

If you need further assist, please forward your request to Graphisoft AUS and attention it to Kevin please.

Cheers,

Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 06:23:24 GMT

Thanks Kevin,

I am thinking that to create a Building material with a fixed R value (as opposed to a conductivity property which is applied to the appropriate skin thickness) you need to either set an override or you need to apply a specific quantity of W/mK to a predetermined thickness of the material to end up with the right R value.

Am I right in thinking you can only override the U (R) value of an entire composite in the Energy Model Review so this value cannot easily be added into the composite option except to just increase each element in the structure list by the value suggested by the mfr.

Cheers,
Hugh

Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 00:02:36 GMT

Hugh wrote:
Thanks Kevin,

I am thinking that to create a Building material with a fixed R value (as opposed to a conductivity property which is applied to the appropriate skin thickness) you need to either set an override or you need to apply a specific quantity of W/mK to a predetermined thickness of the material to end up with the right R value.

Am I right in thinking you can only override the U (R) value of an entire composite in the Energy Model Review so this value cannot easily be added into the composite option except to just increase each element in the structure list by the value suggested by the mfr.

That's right. From my experience, Most of Australian reference guides and manufacturers provide Thermal Resistance(R) of whole composite structure. Therefore using overriding entire structure would be good option in most cases.

Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Apr 2014 13:43:48 GMT

Similar to U values, can other material information be linked to a material. For example links to embodied Carbon databases are emerging which should be linked by association.

If this isn't included as of yet, is there something in the pipeline to integrate this using the framework of BS EN 15804 (EPD's A1-D)

Pushing it either further, a timeline view would be very useful so you can attach date tags to items and also possibly begin to design using Lifecycle Analysis.

Any feedback of where the BIM industry is and likelihood and timescales (anticipated version) would be very handy.

Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 20:10:32 GMT

Hello everyone,

Is it possible to add a new material in the ecodesigner database in the material catalog

thanx

Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

Laszlo Nagy — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 15:54:40 GMT

I think it is.

At the following location:

"C:\Program Files\GRAPHISOFT\ArchiCAD 19 INT\Add-Ons\EnergyEvaluation\INT"

You will find a file called "MaterialCatalog.xml".

If you open it with Notepad or other text editing application you will see that its format is quite simple.
The Catalog is made up of Material Groups and each group may contain nay number of Material Definitions.
Just create a new "Material" row in the Material Group you want it to appear and set all its parameters, like Name, Density, etc.
I tried it and it worked for me. The new Material appeared in the proper group of the Material Catalog when I activated the Open Catalog button in the Building Materials Dialog.

You may have to restart ARCHICAD after making changes to the XML file because it may read the XML file at startup.

Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 20:05:23 GMT

What happen went we are on the teamwork if we modify on one working station

Re: Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

Laszlo Nagy — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 20:20:10 GMT

I think what happens is that the newly defined Material Catalog items will be available on the machine where the modified XML resides. You would have to copy the file to the proper folder on all other machines for them to see those new entries in their Material Catalogs.

However, once you applied a Material Catalog item to a Building Material the proper fields of the Building Material are filled and that information, a Building Material being an attribute, is stored within the Project File. So anyone working with the Project file will work with the modified Building Material and anyone will be able to perform correct Energy Analysis.
The Material Catalog file is only needed when you select what values to fill out the fields of the Building Material with.