scholarly journals Early stage Design Workflow for high Energy Performance Multi-storey Residential Buildings

Author(s):  
C. Hachem ◽  
R. Beckett

This paper presents a methodology to optimize building envelope energy performance for multi-storey residential buildings using a design performance model approach. Five analysis techniques, applied to a database of parametric simulation results, are proposed to derive information on various building performance features that can support early design decisions. Information may include optimal combination of design parameter values to achieve lowest energy consumption, or the relative impact of design parameters on a given design, such as a base case. A workflow template is established to provide support for the design process of energy efficient multi-storey residential buildings. This template can form a basis for the development of an interactive tool that integrates energy performance principles into early stage design decisions. The application of this methodology to a building in Vancouver (BC, Canada, 49°N) is presented as a case study. Results of this application demonstrates that adopting a specific combination of building envelope parameters, thermal load can be reduced by up to 85% as compared to a base case designed according to commonly built apartment buildings in the studied location.  

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Muhammad Usman ◽  
Georg Frey

The comprehensive approach for a building envelope design involves building performance simulations, which are time-consuming and require knowledge of complicated processes. In addition, climate variation makes the selection of these parameters more complex. The paper aims to establish guidelines for determining a single-family household’s unique optimal passive design in various climate zones worldwide. For this purpose, a bi-objective optimization is performed for twenty-four locations in twenty climates by coupling TRNSYS and a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-III) using the Python program. The optimization process generates Pareto fronts of thermal load and investment cost to identify the optimum design options for the insulation level of the envelope, window aperture for passive cooling, window-to-wall ratio (WWR), shading fraction, radiation-based shading control, and building orientation. The goal is to find a feasible trade-off between thermal energy demand and the cost of thermal insulation. This is achieved using multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) through criteria importance using intercriteria correlation (CRITIC) and the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). The results demonstrate that an optimal envelope design remarkably improves the thermal load compared to the base case of previous envelope design practices. However, the weather conditions strongly influence the design parameters. The research findings set a benchmark for energy-efficient household envelopes in the investigated climates. The optimal solution sets also provide a criterion for selecting the ranges of envelope design parameters according to the space heating and cooling demands of the climate zone.


2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G. Keane ◽  
Laury Deschamps ◽  
Steve Maguire

The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) recently presented analyses of cost and schedule growth on Major Defense Acquisition Programs (MDAPs)over the last 20 years (2013, 2014). For naval ships, AT&L (2013) concluded that contract work content growth (not capability growth) dominates total cost growth statistically. In addition, costs-over-target are significant and reflect poor cost estimation or faulty framing assumptions. AT&L (2014) also concluded prices on fixed-price contracts are only “fixed” if the contractual work content remains fixed, but this is often not the case. The authors show that under-sizing the ship during concept design studies increases ship outfit density and adds complexities to the design. These early stage design decisions on sizing the ship are a major contributor to unnecessary work content growth later in Detail Design and Construction (DD&C) that cannot be eliminated no matter how productive the shipbuilder. However, new ship design methods are being developed and integrated with legacy physics-based design and analysis tools into a Rapid Ship Design Environment (RSDE)that will enable a more rational process for initially sizing ships. The authors also identify the need for early stage design measures of complexity and ship costing tools that are more sensitive to these measures, and proposed solutions that will aid decision-makers in reducing DD&C work content by making cost-effective design decisions in early stage naval ship design.


2020 ◽  
pp. 014459872097514
Author(s):  
AbdulRahman S Almushaikah ◽  
Radwan A Almasri

Lately, with the growth in energy consumption worldwide to support global efforts to improve the climate, developing nations have to take significant measures. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) implemented meaningful policy actions towards promoting energy efficiency (EE) in several sectors, especially in the building sector, to be more sustainable. In this paper, various EE measures and solar energy prospects are investigated for the residential sector, in two locations in the middle region of the KSA. An energy performance analysis of pre-existing residential buildings with an overall design is performed using simulation programs. However, installing EE measures in the building envelope is important to achieve an efficient sector regarding its energy consumption. The findings showed that applying EE measures for the building envelope, walls, roof, and windows should be considered first that makes the energy conservation possible. In Riyadh, EE measures are responsible for reducing energy consumption by 27% for walls, 14% for roof, and 6% for window, and by 29%, 13%, and 6% for walls, roof, and windows, respectively, for Qassim. However, the most impactful EE solution was selecting a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system with a high energy efficiency rate (EER), which can minimize the energy consumption by 33% and 32% for Riyadh and Qassim, respectively. The study's feasibility showed that the number of years needed to offset the initial investment for a proposed roof PV system exceeds the project's life, if the energy produced is exported to the grid at the official export tariff of 0.019 $/kWh. However, the simple payback time was 13.42 years if the energy produced is exported to the grid at a rate of 0.048 $/kWh, reflecting the project's economic feasibility.


Author(s):  
Ahmed Khairadeen Ali ◽  
One Jae Lee

In contemporary design practices, there is a disconnect between the design techniques used for early-stage design experimentation and performance analysis, and those used for the manufacture and construction. This study addresses the problems in developing an integrated digital design workflow and provides a research framework for integrating environmental performance requirements with robotic manufacturing processes on a construction site. The proposed method enables the user to import a design surface, identify design parameters, set several environmental performance goals, and thereafter simulate and select a robotic building strategy. Based on these inputs, design alternatives are developed and evaluated, considering their robotically simulated constructibility, in terms of their performance criteria. To validate the proposed method, the design is evaluated in an experiment wherein a double-skin facade perforation is generated using the proposed methodology. The results suggest a heuristic feature to improve the simulated robotic constructibility. Moreover, the functionality of the prototype is demonstrated.


2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (02) ◽  
pp. 110-123
Author(s):  
Robert G. Keane ◽  
Laurent Deschamps ◽  
Steve Maguire

The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (AT&L) recently presented analyses of cost and schedule growth on Major Defense Acquisition Programs (MDAPs) over the last 20 years (2013, 2014). For naval ships, AT&L (2013) concluded that contract work content growth (not capability growth) dominates total cost growth statistically. In addition, costs-over-target are significant and reflect poor cost estimation or faulty framing assumptions. AT&L (2014) also concluded prices on fixed-price contracts are only "fixed" if the contractual work content remains fixed, but this is often not the case. We show that under-sizing the ship during concept design studies increases ship outfit density and adds complexities to the design. These early-stage design decisions on sizing the ship are a major contributor to unnecessary work content growth later in Detail Design and Construction (DD&C) that cannot be eliminated no matter how productive the shipbuilder. However, new ship design methods are being developed and integrated with legacy physicsbased design and analysis tools into a Rapid Ship Design Environment (RSDE) that will enable a more rational process for initially sizing ships. We also identify the need for early-stage design measures of complexity and ship costing tools that are more sensitive to these measures, and propose solutions that will aid decision-makers in reducing DD&C work content by making cost-effective design decisions in early-stage naval ship design.


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