IDA Indoor Climate and Energy takes part in the construction industry of the future

EQUA Simulation contributes with development around IDA Indoor Climate and Energy in the I3CON project which aims to improve the performance of the construction industries across the European Union.

The project I3CON was started in October 2006 among a European consortium of 25 selected companies and research intitutes. The project is co-ordinated by Dragados, a major Spanish contractor based in Madrid, and by VTT, the Technical Research Centre of Finland.

The project, which runs for 4 years, aims at radical changes in the construction industry through revolutionary construction and production technologies in the pursuit of large scale improvements in the energy consumption, workforce productivity and carbon emissions of the built environment, as well as equipping the European construction industry to be world-class.

EQUA Simulation is a member of the project, its main role being the provider of the whole-building simulator IDA Indoor Climate and Energy (IDA ICE). In the scope of the project, IDA ICE will be enhanced in a number of ways, including Modelica language support, discrete time components for programmable controllers and improved model visualization.

I3CON investigates a range of components and process innovations, and demonstrates these on some real construction projects. The lessons will be captured in handbooks, in industry-oriented training material and in new university courses that will equip the designers and constructors of the future. It is important for the I3CON to establish links with other European research projects and national initiatives, so that the project takes as much advantage as it can from work that has already been completed.

During the project, regular updates are posted to the project web-site (www.i3con.org) and a newsletter is prepared and distributed every six months. Interim results will also be presented at two international conferences, the first one being the First International Conference on Industrialised, Integrated, Intelligent Construction. Loughborough, UK, 14-16, May 2008.