Application of multi-objective genetic algorithm to optimize energy efficiency and thermal comfort in building design

Several conflicting criteria exist in building design optimization, especially energy consumption and indoor environment thermal performance. This paper presents a novel multi-objective optimization model that can assist designers in green building design. The Pareto solution was used to obtain a set of optimal solutions for building design optimization, and uses an improved multi-objective genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) as a theoretical basis for building design multi-objective optimization model. Based on the simulation data on energy consumption and indoor thermal comfort, the study also used a simulation-based improved back-propagation (BP) network which is optimized by a genetic algorithm (GA) to characterize building behavior, and then establishes a GA-BP network model for rapidly predicting the energy consumption and indoor thermal comfort status of residential buildings; Third, the building design multi-objective optimization model was established by using the GA-BP network as a fitness function of the multi-objective Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II); Finally, a case study is presented with the aid of the multi-objective approach in which dozens of potential designs are revealed for a typical building design in China, with a wide range of trade-offs between thermal comfort and energy consumption. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.