Accessed from Parametric, Optimisation and UA/SA Analysis Settings dialog
Tip: The Optimisation Constraints dialog should be used with caution because there is no Cancel button, so once the dialog is opened, any changes made cannot be undone and upon closing of the dialog, the constraint will be saved, replacing the previous one, with the settings currently being shown on the screen. In the case where you have mistakenly added a constraint (or made incorrect changes while editing an existing one) you can close the dialog and then delete the incorrect constraint on the Constraints tab on the main Edit Parametric, Optimisation and UA/SA Analysis Settings dialog. Alternatively if you haven't made any other changes since opening the main dialog , simply press Cancel on that dialog to lose all changes.
Optimisation Constraints allow you to impose upper or lower limits on a building Key Performance Indicator (KPI) such as Cost or Discomfort. Examples of constraints that might be applied to an optimisation analysis are "Discomfort hours must be less than 200" or "Construction cost must be less than $6m".
Note: The constraint KPI can be the same as a KPI used for an Optimisation Objective.
When viewing optimisation results with constraints applied you will find that some of the results generated don't respect the constraints. This is normal, however you should also see that many more new points are generated that do meet constraints because the optimiser favours such design variants when creating new generations.
Your name for the constraint (e.g. "ASHRAE 55 discomfort hours < 200")
Select a predefined or custom constraint Summary Output Key Performance Indicator (KPI) from the browse list.
Select whether the criterion refers to an upper or lower limit.
Enter the upper or lower limit value for the KPI.
The units of predefined KPIs are defined internally by the selected KPI itself. For custom KPIs the units are defined by the script that you write and in those cases it is usual to include the units within the name of the KPI. For example in the Custom Script KPI Tutorial the custom KPI created is given the name "EUI (kWh/m2)".