Computerizing Regulatory Knowledge for Building Engineering Design

Abstract

Two common challenges in the computer-aided compliance audit of building engineering designs are addressed in the current research. The first is to ensure that any form of computable representation is practical and relatively easy to use and maintain. The second is to ensure that performance-based regulatory compliance criteria, which are often qualitative in nature, are adequately addressed and correctly represented. This research proposes a method of automating manual compliant design procedures using an open standard executable work-flow representation that can be specified and maintained relatively easily by a design engineer. This executable workflow is referred to as the compliant design procedure (CDP) and can be described graphically. When executed in a computing environment, a CDP can guide the compliance audit process by checking a given design represented in a model view or subset of the building information model (BIM), referred to as the building compliance model (BCM), against the criteria in a digital building code, referred to as the regulatory knowledge model (RKM), which is developed specifically for this purpose. This paper describes the process of modeling and encoding BCM, CDP, and RKM, which are independent input components of the proposed compliance audit system framework. Supplementary human input and the ability to exchange input and output data with external simulation tools to solve some of the more complex qualitative criteria are important features of the framework.