scholarly journals Optimizing occupant-centric building controls given stochastic occupant behaviour

2021 ◽  
Vol 2069 (1) ◽  
pp. 012140
Author(s):  
Zeinab Khorasani zadeh ◽  
Mohamed M. Ouf
Keyword(s):  
Energy Savings ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Occupant Behaviour ◽  
Indoor Climate ◽  
Climate Control ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Occupancy Patterns ◽  
Occupant Comfort ◽  
Behaviour Models

Abstract Occupant-centric control (OCC) strategies represent a novel approach for indoor climate control in which occupancy patterns and occupant preferences are embedded within control sequences. They aim to improve both occupant comfort and energy efficiency by learning and predicting occupant behaviour, then optimizing building operations accordingly. Previous studies estimate that OCC can increase energy savings by up to 60% while improving occupant comfort. However, their performance is subjected to several factors, including uncertainty due to occupant behaviour, OCC configurational settings, as well as building design parameters. To this end, testing OCCs and adjusting their configurational settings are critical to ensure optimal performance. Furthermore, identifying building design alternatives that can optimize such performance given different occupant preferences is an important step that cannot be investigated during field implementations of OCC due to logistical constraints. This paper presents a framework to optimize OCC performance in a simulation environment, which entails coupling synthetic occupant behaviour models with OCCs that learn their preferences. The genetic algorithm for optimization is then used to identify the configurational settings and design parameters that minimize energy consumption under three different occupant scenarios. To demonstrate the proposed framework, three OCCs were implemented in the building simulation program, EnergyPlus, and executed through a Python package, EPPY to optimize OCC configurational settings and design parameters. Results revealed significant improvement of OCC performance under the identified optimal configurational settings and design parameters for each of the investigated occupant scenarios. This approach would improve OCC performance in actual buildings and avoid discomfort issues that arise during the initial implementation phases.

Agent Based Modelling to Improve Comfort and Save Energy in the Built Environment

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wim Zeiler ◽  
Gert Boxem ◽  
Rinus van Houten ◽  
Joep van der Velden ◽  
Willem Wortel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Control Strategy ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Research Centre ◽  
Control Technology ◽  
Indoor Climate ◽  
Climate Control ◽  
Reduce Energy Consumption

In Europe comfort in buildings needs 40% of the total energy. With effects of Global warming becoming more and more apparent there is a need to reduce this energy demand by comfort within the built environment. In comfort control strategy there is an exciting development based on inclusive design: the user’s preferences and their behaviour have become central in the building services control strategy. Synergy between end-user and building is the ultimate in the intelligent comfort control concept. This new comfort control technology is based on the use of agent technology and can further reduce energy consumption of buildings while at the same time improve individual comfort. The TU/e (Technische Universiteit Eindhoven) together with Kropman and ECN (Energy research Centre Netherlands) work together in the research for user based preference indoor climate control technology. Central in this approach is the user focus of the whole building design process which makes it possible to reduce energy consumption by tuning demand and supply of the energy needed to fulfill the comfort demand of the occupants building.

scholarly journals Retrofitting an Existing Office Building in the UAE Towards Achieving Low-Energy Building

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 2573
Author(s):  
Maatouk Khoukhi ◽  
Abeer Fuad Darsaleh ◽  
Sara Ali
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Lower Energy ◽  
Energy Savings ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Office Building ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Base Case ◽  
Hvac System ◽  
Existing Buildings ◽  
Existing Building

Retrofitting an existing building can oftentimes be more cost-effective than building a new facility. Since buildings consume a significant amount of energy, particularly for heating and cooling, and because existing buildings comprise the largest segment of the built environment, it is important to initiate energy conservation retrofits to reduce energy consumption and the cost of heating, cooling, and lighting buildings. However, conserving energy is not the only reason for retrofitting existing buildings. The goal should be to create a high-performance building by applying an integrated, whole-building design process to the project during the planning phase that ensures that all key design objectives are met. This paper presents a real case study of the retrofitting of an existing building to achieve lower energy consumption. Indeed, most of the constructed buildings in the UAE are unsuitable for the region, which is characterized by a very harsh climate that causes massive cooling loads and energy consumption due to an appropriate selection of design parameters at the design level. In this study, a monthly computer simulation of energy consumption of an office building in Sharjah was carried out under UAE weather conditions. Several parameters, including the building orientation, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system, external shading, window-to-wall ratio, and the U-values of the walls and the roof, were investigated and optimized to achieve lower energy consumption. The simulation shows that the best case is 41.7% more efficient than the real (original) case and 30.6% more than the base case. The most sensitive parameter in the retrofitting alternatives is the roof component, which affects the energy savings by 8.49%, followed by the AC system with 8.34% energy savings if well selected using the base case. Among the selected five components, a new roof structure contributed the most to the decrease in the overall energy consumption (approximately 38%). This is followed by a new HVAC system, which leads to a 37% decrease, followed by a new wall type with insulation, resulting in a 20% decrease.

scholarly journals Towards Online Personalized-Monitoring of Human Thermal Sensation Using Machine Learning Approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (16) ◽  
pp. 3303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Youssef ◽  
Ahmed Youssef Ali Amer ◽  
Nicolás Caballero ◽  
Jean-Marie Aerts
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Thermal State ◽  
Thermal Sensation ◽  
Wearable Sensors ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Streaming Data ◽  
Classification Model ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
Indoor Climate ◽  
Climate Control

Thermal comfort and sensation are important aspects of building design and indoor climate control, as modern man spends most of the day indoors. Conventional indoor climate design and control approaches are based on static thermal comfort/sensation models that view the building occupants as passive recipients of their thermal environment. To overcome the disadvantages of static models, adaptive thermal comfort models aim to provide opportunity for personalized climate control and thermal comfort enhancement. Recent advances in wearable technologies contributed to new possibilities in controlling and monitoring health conditions and human wellbeing in daily life. The generated streaming data generated from wearable sensors are providing a unique opportunity to develop a real-time monitor of an individual’s thermal state. The main goal of this work is to introduce a personalized adaptive model to predict individual’s thermal sensation based on non-intrusive and easily measured variables, which could be obtained from already available wearable sensors. In this paper, a personalized classification model for individual thermal sensation with a reduced-dimension input-space, including 12 features extracted from easily measured variables, which are obtained from wearable sensors, was developed using least-squares support vector machine algorithm. The developed classification model predicted the individual’s thermal sensation with an overall average accuracy of 86%. Additionally, we introduced the main framework of streaming algorithm for personalized classification model to predict an individual’s thermal sensation based on streaming data obtained from wearable sensors.

MPC-Based Hierarchical Control of a Multi-Zone Commercial HVAC System

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Naren Srivaths Raman ◽  
Rahul Umashankar Chaturvedi ◽  
Zhong Guo ◽  
Prabir Barooah
Keyword(s):  
Energy Savings ◽  
Hierarchical Control ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Indoor Climate ◽  
Low Resolution ◽  
Climate Control ◽  
Resolution Model ◽  
The Individual ◽  
High Level ◽  
Data Driven Modeling

Abstract This paper presents a novel architecture for model predictive control (MPC) based indoor climate control of multi-zone buildings to provide energy efficiency. Unlike prior works we do not assume the availability of a high-resolution multi-zone building model, which is challenging to obtain. Instead, the architecture uses a low-resolution model of the building which is divided into a small number of “meta-zones” that can be easily identified using existing data-driven modeling techniques. The proposed architecture is hierarchical. At the higher level, an MPC controller uses the low-resolution model to make decisions for the air handling unit (AHU) and the meta-zones. Since the meta-zones are fictitious, a lower level controller converts the high-level MPC decisions into commands for the individual zones by solving a projection problem that strikes a trade-off between two potentially conflicting goals: the AHU-level decisions made by the MPC are respected while the climate of the individual zones is maintained within the comfort bounds. The performance of the proposed controller is assessed via simulations in a high-fidelity simulation testbed and compared to that of a rule-based controller that is used in practice. Simulations in multiple weather conditions show the effectiveness of the proposed controller in terms of energy savings, climate control, and computational tractability.

scholarly journals Personal Comfort Node: Prototyping of a Comfort Sensor for HVAC Control

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Rosenberger ◽  
Austin Coffman ◽  
Prabir Barooah
Keyword(s):  
Low Cost ◽  
User Interaction ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Indoor Climate ◽  
Real Time Control ◽  
Climate Control ◽  
Time Control ◽  
Occupant Comfort ◽  
Commercial Off The Shelf ◽  
Future Work

This paper presents the design of a Personal Comfort Node (PCN), a platform for sensing and user interaction, meant to be part of an indoor climate control system that can provide personalized occupant comfort in commercial buildings. The paper describes the lessons learned during the design and prototyping of an individual node. The hardware components are of commercial-off-the-shelf variety and the software design is based on open source tools that are freely available, so that it is possible to replicate the device at low cost. The goal of this article is to aid such replication. The design and testing of a network of these devices, along with their use in real-time control of indoor climate, will be reported in future work.

scholarly journals Effects of Architectural Space Layouts on Energy Performance: A Review

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 1829 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiantian Du ◽  
Sabine Jansen ◽  
Michela Turrin ◽  
Andy van den Dobbelsteen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Ventilation ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Office Building ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Heating And Cooling ◽  
Design Variables ◽  
Occupant Comfort ◽  
The Uk

As one of the most important design tasks of building design, space layout design affects the building energy performance (BEP). In order to investigate the effect, a literature review of relevant papers was performed. Ten relevant articles were found and reviewed in detail. First, a methodology for studying the effects of space layouts on BEP were proposed regarding design variables, energy indicators and BEP calculation methods, and the methodologies used in the 10 articles were reviewed. Then, the effects of space layouts on energy use and occupant comfort were analysed separately. The results show that the energy use for heating, cooling, lighting and ventilation is highly affected by space layouts, as well as thermal and visual comfort. The effects of space layouts on energy use are higher than on occupant comfort. By changing space layouts, the resulting reductions in the annual final energy for heating and cooling demands were up to 14% and 57%, respectively, in an office building in Sweden. The resulting reductions in the lighting demand of peak summer and winter were up to 67% and 43%, respectively, for the case of an office building in the UK, and the resulting reduction in the air volume supplied by natural ventilation was 65%. The influence of other design parameters, i.e., occupancy and window to wall ratio, on the effects of space layouts on BEP was also identified.

Buildings with environmental quality management: Part 1: Designing multifunctional construction materials

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Bomberg ◽  
Marcin Furtak ◽  
David Yarbrough
Keyword(s):  
Quality Management ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Environmental Quality ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
Integrated Design ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Information Modeling ◽  
Indoor Climate ◽  
Climate Control ◽  
Building Physics

The quest for a sustainable built environment has resulted in dramatic changes in the process of residential construction. The new concepts of an integrated design team, building information modeling, commissioning of the building enclosure, and passive house standards have reached maturity. Global work on development of new construction materials has not changed, but their evaluation is not the same as in the past when each material was considered on its own merits. Today, we look at the performance of a building as a system and on the material as a contributor to this system. The series of white papers—a research overview in building physics undertaken in European and North American researchers—is to provide understanding of the process of design and construction for sustainable built environment that involves harmony between different aspects of the environment, society, and economy. Yet, the building physics is changing. It merges with building science in the quest of predicting building performance, it merges concepts of passive houses with solar engineering and integrates building shell with mechanical services, but is still missing an overall vision. Physics does not tell us how to integrate people with their environment. The authors propose a new term buildings with environmental quality management because the vision of the building design must be re-directed toward people. In doing so, the building physics will automatically include durability of the shell, energy efficiency, and carbon emission and aspects such as individual ventilation and indoor climate control. This article, which is part 1 of a series, deals with materials, and other issues will be discussed in following papers.

scholarly journals A Novel Approach for a Faster Prototyping of Winter Sport Equipment Using Digital Image Correlation and 3D Printing

Proceedings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 125
Author(s):  
Martino Colonna ◽  
Benno Zingerle ◽  
Maria Federica Parisi ◽  
Claudio Gioia ◽  
Alessandro Speranzoni ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
3D Printing ◽  
Digital Image Correlation ◽  
Digital Image ◽  
Sport Activity ◽  
Image Correlation ◽  
Topological Optimization ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Sport Equipment ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
3D Printed

The optimization of sport equipment parts requires considerable time and high costs due to the high complexity of the development process. For this reason, we have developed a novel approach to decrease the cost and time for the optimization of the design, which consists of producing a first prototype by 3D printing, applying the forces that normally acts during the sport activity using a test bench, and then measuring the local deformations using 3D digital image correlation (DIC). The design parameters are then modified by topological optimization and then DIC is performed again on the new 3D-printed modified part. The DIC analysis of 3D-printed parts has shown a good agreement with that of the injection-molded ones. The deformation measured with DIC are also well correlated with those provided by finite element method (FEM) analysis, and therefore DIC analysis proves to be a powerful tool to validate FEM models.

Evaluation methods of the daylight performance and potential energy saving of tubular daylight guide systems: A review

2021 ◽  
pp. 1420326X2199241
Author(s):  
Hanlin Li ◽  
Dan Wu ◽  
Yanping Yuan ◽  
Lijun Zuo
Keyword(s):  
Potential Energy ◽  
Energy Saving ◽  
Energy Savings ◽  
Performance Metrics ◽  
Field Measurements ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Estimation Methods ◽  
The Past ◽  
Potential Energy Saving ◽  
Daylight Performance

In the past 30 years, tubular daylight guide systems (TDGSs) have become one of the most popular ways to transport outdoor natural light into the inner space in building design. However, tubular daylight guide systems are not widely used because of the lack of methods to evaluate methods on the suitability of the TDGSs. This study therefore summarizes the daylight performance metrics of TDGSs and presents the estimation methods in terms of field measurements, simulation and empirical formulae. This study focuses on the daylight performance and potential energy savings of TDGSs. Moreover, this study will be helpful for building designers to build healthy, comfortable and energy-saving indoor environment.

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