A novel simulation based evolutionary algorithm to optimize building envelope for energy efficient buildings

Building envelope plays a vital role in energy efficient buildings. This study introduces a novel simulation based optimization algorithm to minimize the net thermal load of buildings through optimizing envelope. Ten parameters related to the building envelope, including aspect ratio of the building, window to wall ratio, building orientation, roof material, wall material etc were taken as the decision space variables. A mathematical model is developed to evaluate the energy flow of the building on hourly basis. The model is amalgamated with a simulation algorithm to evaluate the hourly averaged thermal load of the building (considering one year), which is taken as the objective function to be optimized. A constraint, mono-objective optimization algorithm is used to optimize the objective function considering the sensitivity of total window area. Finally, the impact of the total window area on the optimized results is analyzed through a sensitivity analysis.