scholarly journals An Approach to Adaptive Sustainable Facades Inspired by Plants

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Nadeen Nour ElDin ◽  
Amal Abdou
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Adaptive Strategies ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Valuable Contribution ◽  
Plant Adaptations

Nowadays, and under the global warming circumstances we are facing, particularly those resulting from the building sectors, many directions for more sustainable and eco-friendly concepts have emerged. From these sustainability approaches is the “Biomimicry” approach. This approach represents the science of imitating and benefiting from nature’s principles. Nature has provided various strategies to adapt to the surrounding conditions. There are several methodologies and tools developed following the biomimicry approach and taking nature as inspiration. However, difficulties arise in collaborating more than one discipline, which consumes a lot of time and effort, consequently cost. Furthermore, the existing methodologies are still too generic for architects. Therefore, this paper aims at developing a platform that integrates different methodologies, approaches, and tools comprehensively.In this paper, the focus would be on plant adaptations. A more focus would be on the building’s envelope specifically due to its valuable contribution to the building’s overall energy consumption. The paper seeks to integrate the plant’s adaptive strategies to the building envelope. The motivation is to tackle solutions for the building envelope environmental problems mainly for heat, water air, and light challenges.

scholarly journals PRINCIPLES OF IMPLEMENTATION OF THE VERTICAL GREENERY SYSTEM (VGS) IN ARCHITECTURE

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (30) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Čekić ◽  
Tanja Trkulja ◽  
Ljiljana Došenović
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
System Model ◽  
System Implementation ◽  
Saving Energy

The environmental problems of cities have caused an increase in energy consumption in buildings, which can be slowed by improving the buildings’ energy efficiency. Energy consumption in buildings is affected by the building envelope, and integration of the greenery with the building envelope will contribute in saving energy and increasing the buildings’ energy efficiency. Therefore, the vertical greenery system (VGS) has received a lot of attention in recent decades as a model whose implementation can increase the energy efficiency of buildings. Defining the basic VGS system implementation will allow engineers to systematically approach the process of VGS system implementation and help them choose the best VGS system model for a selected site or building.

Impact of roof shading on building energy performance in warm & humid climatic places of India

2020 ◽  
pp. 50-64
Author(s):  
Kuladeep Kumar Sadevi ◽  
Avlokita Agrawal
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Conservation ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
General Assumption ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Passive Cooling ◽  
Base Case ◽  
U Value ◽  
The Impact

With the rise in awareness of energy efficient buildings and adoption of mandatory energy conservation codes across the globe, significant change is being observed in the way the buildings are designed. With the launch of Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) in India, climate responsive designs and passive cooling techniques are being explored increasingly in building designs. Of all the building envelope components, roof surface has been identified as the most significant with respect to the heat gain due to the incident solar radiation on buildings, especially in tropical climatic conditions. Since ECBC specifies stringent U-Values for roof assembly, use of insulating materials is becoming popular. Along with insulation, the shading of the roof is also observed to be an important strategy for improving thermal performance of the building, especially in Warm and humid climatic conditions. This study intends to assess the impact of roof shading on building’s energy performance in comparison to that of exposed roof with insulation. A typical office building with specific geometry and schedules has been identified as base case model for this study. This building is simulated using energy modelling software ‘Design Builder’ with base case parameters as prescribed in ECBC. Further, the same building has been simulated parametrically adjusting the amount of roof insulation and roof shading simultaneously. The overall energy consumption and the envelope performance of the top floor are extracted for analysis. The results indicate that the roof shading is an effective passive cooling strategy for both naturally ventilated and air conditioned buildings in Warm and humid climates of India. It is also observed that a fully shaded roof outperforms the insulated roof as per ECBC prescription. Provision of shading over roof reduces the annual energy consumption of building in case of both insulated and uninsulated roofs. However, the impact is higher for uninsulated roofs (U-Value of 3.933 W/m2K), being 4.18% as compared to 0.59% for insulated roofs (U-Value of 0.33 W/m2K).While the general assumption is that roof insulation helps in reducing the energy consumption in tropical buildings, it is observed to be the other way when insulation is provided with roof shading. It is due to restricted heat loss during night.

scholarly journals Online Implementation of a Soft Actor-Critic Agent to Enhance Indoor Temperature Control and Energy Efficiency in Buildings

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 997
Author(s):  
Davide Coraci ◽  
Silvio Brandi ◽  
Marco Savino Piscitelli ◽  
Alfonso Capozzoli
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Temperature Control ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Heating System ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Indoor Temperature ◽  
Model Free ◽  
Occupancy Patterns ◽  
Online Implementation ◽  
Indoor Temperature Control

Recently, a growing interest has been observed in HVAC control systems based on Artificial Intelligence, to improve comfort conditions while avoiding unnecessary energy consumption. In this work, a model-free algorithm belonging to the Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) class, Soft Actor-Critic, was implemented to control the supply water temperature to radiant terminal units of a heating system serving an office building. The controller was trained online, and a preliminary sensitivity analysis on hyperparameters was performed to assess their influence on the agent performance. The DRL agent with the best performance was compared to a rule-based controller assumed as a baseline during a three-month heating season. The DRL controller outperformed the baseline after two weeks of deployment, with an overall performance improvement related to control of indoor temperature conditions. Moreover, the adaptability of the DRL agent was tested for various control scenarios, simulating changes of external weather conditions, indoor temperature setpoint, building envelope features and occupancy patterns. The agent dynamically deployed, despite a slight increase in energy consumption, led to an improvement of indoor temperature control, reducing the cumulative sum of temperature violations on average for all scenarios by 75% and 48% compared to the baseline and statically deployed agent respectively.

scholarly journals TOPOI RESOURCES: Quantification and Assessment of Global Warming Potential and Land-Uptake of Residential Buildings in Settlement Types along the Urban–Rural Gradient—Opportunities for Sustainable Development

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4099
Author(s):  
Ann-Kristin Mühlbach ◽  
Olaf Mumm ◽  
Ryan Zeringue ◽  
Oskars Redbergs ◽  
Elisabeth Endres ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Global Warming Potential ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Residential Building ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Residential Building Stock ◽  
Urban Rural

The METAPOLIS as the polycentric network of urban–rural settlement is undergoing constant transformation and urbanization processes. In particular, the associated imbalance of the shrinkage and growth of different settlement types in relative geographical proximity causes negative effects, such as urban sprawl and the divergence of urban–rural lifestyles with their related resource, land and energy consumption. Implicitly related to these developments, national and global sustainable development goals for the building sector lead to the question of how a region can be assessed without detailed research and surveys to identify critical areas with high potential for sustainable development. In this study, the TOPOI method is used. It classifies settlement units and their interconnections along the urban–rural gradient, in order to quantify and assess the land-uptake and global warming potential driven by residential developments. Applying standard planning parameters in combination with key data from a comprehensive life cycle assessment of the residential building stock, a detailed understanding of different settlement types and their associated resource and energy consumption is achieved.

A Life Cycle Assessment of Biofuel Produced From Waste Cooking Oil

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sierra Spencer ◽  
Malia Scott ◽  
Nelson Macken
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Waste Cooking Oil ◽  
Oil Refining ◽  
Soy Oil ◽  
Waste Oil ◽  
Cumulative Energy ◽  
Cooking Oil

Biofuels have received considerable attention as a more sustainable solution for heating applications. Used vegetable oil, normally considered a waste product, has been suggested as a possible candidate. Herein we perform a life cycle assessment to determine the environmental impact of using waste vegetable oil as a fuel. We present a cradle to fuel model that includes the following unit processes: soybean farming, soy oil refining, the cooking process, cleaning/drying waste oil, preheating the oil in a centralized heating facility and transportation when required. For soybean farming, national historical data for yields, energy required for machinery, fertilizers (nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium), herbicides, pesticides and nitrous oxide production are considered. In soy oil refining, steam production using natural gas and electricity for machinery are considered inputs. Preprocessing, extraction using hexane and post processing are considered. In order to determine a mass balance for the cooking operation, oil carryout and waste oil removal are estimated. During waste oil processing, oil is filtered and water removed. Data from GREET is used to compute global warming potential (GWP) and energy consumption in terms of cumulative energy demand (CED). Mass allocation is applied to the soy meal produced in refining and oil utilized for cooking. Results are discussed with emphasis on improving sustainability. A comparison is made to traditional fuels, e.g., commercial fuel oil and natural gas. The production of WVO as fuel has significantly less global warming potential but higher cumulative energy consumption than traditional fuels. The study should provide useful information on the sustainability of using waste cooking oil as a fuel for heating.

scholarly journals Experimental Study on the Thermal Behavior of Exterior Coating Textures of Building in Hot and Arid Climates

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4175
Author(s):  
Islam Boukhelkhal ◽  
Fatiha Bourbia
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Surface Temperature ◽  
External Surface ◽  
Thermal Characteristics ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Interior Space ◽  
Design Elements ◽  
Aesthetic Appearance ◽  
Reduction Of Energy Consumption

The building envelope is the barrier between the interior and exterior environments. It has many important functions, including protecting the interior space from the climatic variations through its envelope materials and design elements, as well as reduction of energy consumption and improving indoor thermal comfort. Furthermore, exterior building sidings, in addition to their aesthetic appearance, can have useful textures for reducing solar gains and providing good thermal insulation performance. This research examined and evaluated the effect of external siding texture and geometry on energy performance. For this objective, a field in situ testing and investigation of surface temperature was carried out on four samples (test boxes) with different exterior textures and different orientations, under the climate zone of Constantine–Algeria during the summer period. The results indicated significant dependability between the exterior texture geometry, the percentage of shadow projected, and external surface temperature. The second part of the research involved a similar approach, exploring the effect of three types of particles with the same appearance but with different thermal characteristics. It was concluded that the natural plant aggregates “palm particles” had the best performance, which contributed to a significant reduction of external surface temperature reaching 4.3 °C, which meant decreasing the energy consumption.

Riqualificazione energetica e bioedilizia in Italia: lo stato dell'arte

2012 ◽  
pp. 74-88
Author(s):  
Livio de Santoli
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Heat Pumps ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Solar Panels ◽  
Water Heaters

Building sustainability, in term of energy efficiency, low-impact building materials, renewable energy, has experienced significant growth during the past years. In response to the growing dependence on fossil fuels and importations, due in part to the increase of energy consumption in the residential sector (in 2009 46,9 Mtep, 3% more than 2008) and the recent European directives (i.e. EU 2009/28/CE) requiring CO2 emissions cut of up to 13% in 2020, there is interest in promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies, which are suitable for residential applications. In this paper we present an overview on actions related to minimization of buildings energy consumption in Italy. Prevalent line of action is to improve the energy performances of building envelope (Dlgs 192/05) using insulated frames, walls and roofs and replacing heat generators with condensing boilers. In addition to national directives, ONRE Report 2011 (National Observatory on building regulations) shows that 831 Municipalities (10% more than 2010) establish mandatory targets for insulation, photovoltaic solar panels, solar water heaters, heat pumps use, correct buildings orientation, saving of water resource and local materials use. In addiction an efficient energy rating of the buildings could promote the spread of energy efficiency measurement and consequently facilitate their implementation. The new energy rating system should meet international standards, regarding environment and energy aspects, and respect territorial needs.

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