Resilience-oriented design for complex MEP systems in BIM

Abstract

Normal operation of a Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing (MEP) system under random and intentional attacks is important to a building. A systematic research framework is proposed to analyze the resilience of an MEP system and optimize its design. The resilience magnitude in this research measures the ability of the MEP system to keep standard operation when component failures appear. First, the MEP model in Building Information Modelling (BIM) environment is extracted to a graph database by using Revit API, which represents the complex network of an MEP system. Second, the importance of the components and the resilience of the MEP system is analyzed based on the network theory and topological metrics. Third, the failure simulation is carried out by attacking the node of the system randomly and intentionally. Finally, the genetic algorithm is used to optimize the design of the MEP system by adding new edges. The results show that: (i) the graph database is a good representation of the MEP system, and it can convert the 3D model to a format that can be analyzed by data analysis measures, (ii) the same component in the MEP system could have different importance from different perspectives, (iii) the proposed network is more resilient with bridge ratio index and average path length improved by 6.16% and 40.58%, respectively, and (iv) the proposed intentional attack strategy is more conform to reality, and it can cause more severe results to a system. The research can contribute to the implementation of the resilience design theory in the MEP discipline, and create a bond between the 3D model and data analysis.