Materials catalogue in Ecodesigner

[Tom Krowka]

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.

[Anonymous]

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

[Anonymous]

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,

[Anonymous]

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

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone,

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

thanx

[Laszlo Nagy]

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.

[Anonymous]

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

[Laszlo Nagy]

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.