OPTIMIZING ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND STRUCTURAL PERFORMANCE OF OFFICE BUILDINGS IN TEHRAN CITY USING COST-EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS: A MODELING AND SIMULATIONBASED ANALYSIS

Introduction: Office buildings in big cities consume enormous amounts of energy resources every year and the resulting carbon dioxide emissions are significant. In addition, the design, construction, and maintenance of these buildings are extremely expensive, so it is necessary to pay special attention to their durability, stability, and useful life during the design phase. Purpose of the study: The main goals of this research were to optimize energy consumption and structural performance of office buildings in megacities by using cost-effective solutions. Methods: An office building in Tehran (the capital of Iran) was selected as a case study and simulated using DesignBuilder, Revit, and Robot Structural Analysis software as a baseline model. Then to achieve the main goal, a number of cost-effective solutions were applied in developed and proposed models of this building in a simulation environment. Results: The results of this simulation-based analysis showed that the economic solutions used in the proposed model could reduce not only the annual energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions by 50 %, but also the weight of the materials in the external walls and ceilings by up to 16 %. The suggested methods can significantly reduce the cost of reinforcing the structure and can also increase the building’s useful life, durability, and stability. The results of this research can be used in the design phase of office buildings in megacities such as Tehran.