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Selecting a suitable heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system is critical, because it impacts a building’s life cycle cost (LCC). Several factors affect the selection decision, such as quality, buildability, internal and external building appearance, HVAC size and weight, and LCC. These criteria are difficult to measure, as they are not based on agreed measurement units. Another challenging factor in the selection process is assessing the building’s function/performance and determining its HVAC needs. Currently, the decision depends mostly on expert knowledge, and there is no agreed-upon systematic method to follow. This paper aims to develop a systematic model for selecting HVAC systems based on the value engineering (VE) concept. The model identified fourteen criteria based on an agreed standard test for objective criteria and a typical evaluation for subjective criteria. These HVAC criteria were assessed using a combination of the AHP, pairwise, function analysis system (FAST), and Monte Carlo techniques. As a result, a complete model was developed to enhance the selection process, programmed within the building information modeling (BIM) environment platform. Several HVAC experts were interviewed and more than twenty expert opinions were collected to validate the model. In addition, a case study building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was implemented using the programmed HVAC selection model for validation purposes. The programmed model can significantly facilitate the selection process for designers.
Alghamdi et al. (Sun,) studied this question.