Name: ANDRÉ BARCELLOS FERREIRA
Type: MSc dissertation
Publication date: 14/03/2019
Advisor:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| JOÃO LUIZ CALMON NOGUEIRA DA GAMA | Advisor * |
Examining board:
| Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| EDUMAR RAMOS CABRAL COELHO | External Examiner * |
| GEILMA LIMA VIEIRA | Internal Examiner * |
| JOÃO LUIZ CALMON NOGUEIRA DA GAMA | Advisor * |
| JORGE LEONID ACHING SAMATELO | Co advisor * |
| RICARDO FRANCI GONÇALVES | Co advisor * |
Summary: Population growth, climate change, urbanization, and many other factors have resulted
in a growing imbalance between the supply and demand of drinking water, both at a
global scale, as well as in Brazil. Measures that increase the efficiency of use and allow
using alternative sources, are very much needed. However, it is crucial that these
solutions are seen as an investment and not as a cost, so that they are adopted at a
large scale. This research aims at offering project designers a solution (made available
as a Revit plug-in) to verify the economic viability of additional investments needed for
the implementation of a project with rational water-saving solutions, instead of a one
with traditional solutions. By doing this, this economic analysis is transferred to the
design stage. The following possible solutions are considered: reuse of greywater, use
of rainwater and use of water-saving devices. The viability is verified when the payback
period of the investment is less than the system lifetime. The developed tool intends
to determine this period by way of a mathematical model created based on the
amounts of: typical flow rates for traditional and water-saving devices; frequencies of
use; types of devices used; data about consumption outside the building; financial
data; data to estimate the costs with operation and maintenance. In addition, the tool
uses BIM (Building Information Modeling) technology. One condition for its use is that
all the building projects are designed using a BIM software more precisely, the
software Autodesk Revit. The mathematical model was created based on a literature
review about the topic, using comparisons with similar studies and proposing new
approaches on specific issues, like the use of specific data of each project for a
verification. This resulted in a plug-in for Revit. It is represented by an additional tab in
the user interface, fully integrated in the software, and suitable for the Brazilian context,
both in terms of the standards as well as in relation to the proceedings of budgeting
(allowing the use of reference prices of tables from state institutions and the application
of BDI into the budget).
