A knowledge-based system to estimate the level of efficiency of green buildings

Abstract

Sustainability has become an important initiative and has been discussed not only by green buildings but also by public buildings that are residential, office, commercial, as well as a hospital. Construction can withstand the design, construction, execution, maintenance, and removal of buildings in ways that conserve natural resources and reduce pollution. Ranking systems provide an efficient framework for assessing the environmental performance of a building and measure the tolerability of a building by applying a set of criteria organized in different classifications. A good green building rating system (GBRS) should cover key indicators that reflect building characteristics and keep their performance in balance. This paper presents a knowledge-based expert system as a tool to assess the performance level of a green building based on the evaluation factors of green building rating systems. Analytic hierarchical processing (AHP) and fuzzy logic have been adopted to develop a knowledge-based expert system. Data for this study were collected from experts in this field through Likert-based questionnaires in pairs. Using AHP, the most important parameters of ranking systems are selected according to their weights, to participate in the fuzzy inference system (FIS) of the fuzzy logic model. Fuzzy rules (knowledge) have been discovered from data collected for the FIS, to assess the level of performance of green buildings from the environmental, social, and economic aspects shown as SE2. The output of this study is a performance appraisal tool that analyzes the effect of factors on the development of a sustainable building.