Design Optimisation of Fixed and Adaptive Shading Devices on Four Façade Orientations of a High-Rise Office Building in the Tropics

Optimisation of shading devices in buildings is a broadly investigated topic; however, most studies only focus on a single façade orientation, since the observed buildings are typically located in high latitude regions. However, in tropical regions, optimisation of all façade orientations is required due to the relatively high solar radiation and long sunshine duration. While adaptive shading devices are a promising solution, they are not without disadvantages, and as such a combination of adaptive shading devices and a fixed shading device shall be considered. This research therefore aims to design the optimum internal shading devices on four façade orientations of a high-rise office building in a tropical city, considering fixed and adaptive shading design options, and to determine the impact on annual daylight performance using computational modelling and simulation. The simulation is carried out under: (1) fixed design option, focusing on the numbers and width of slats; and (2) adaptive design option, focusing on the slat angle on various conditions. It is found that both sDA300/50% and ASE1000,250 are only influenced by the orientation. Under the fixed design option, the sDA300/50% and ASE1000,250 targets can be achieved only on the north and south façades, and accordingly the adaptive design option shall be implemented on the east and west façades. Overall, this study contributes to knowledge regarding the optimisation of shading devices in high-rise buildings in the tropics, considering the daylight admission from the four cardinal orientations.

CHOOSING THE STYLE OF A NEW DESIGN - THE KEY SHIP DESIGN DECISION

As a former senior designer of naval vessels and, more recently, a leading researcher in ship design, the author has previously presented a description of the ship design process in terms of the important decisions a ship designer makes in concept exploration. Such decision are made consciously or unconsciously in order to produce a new design or, preferably, any design option. It has been contended in many publications that the first real decision that a ship designer makes, in order to proceed, is the selection of the “style” of the design study or of a specific design option. This term was adopted in order to cover, not just a host of design issues and standards implicit in a given study, but also, at this very initial step, the overall characteristics of any particular study. So the term style could be said to be doubly important. The current paper considers the nature of the early ship design process for complex multi-functional vessels and then retraces the origins of the particular use of the term, where it was seen as the last of the five elements in Brown and Andrews’ 1980 encapsulation of the ship design issues that matter to the naval architect, incorporated in the term “S to the 5th”. This leads on to consideration of the various aspects of design style, many of which could be considered “transversals” as they apply across the naval architectural sub-disciplines and to the component material sub-systems comprising a ship. One of the distinctive advantages of the architecturally driven ship synthesis or Design Building Block approach is that it can address many of these style issues in the earliest descriptions of an emergent design study. Examples, drawing on a range of built Royal Navy ship designs, are presented to show their top-level style characteristics, followed by a series of ship design research studies illustrating how the impact of specific component style aspects can be investigated in early stage ship design, using the UCL Design Building Block approach. Finally, recent research led investigations into integrating ship style into early stage ship design are summarized to demonstrate why the choice of “style” is seen to be The Key Ship Design Decision.

Optimization of the European Sodium Fast Reactor Secondary Sodium Loop as Part of the ESFR-SMART Project

Based on feedback from existing reactors and current projects, the European Sodium Fast Reactor Safety Measures Assessment and Research Tools (ESFR SMART) project proposes an optimization of the secondary circuit with the main aim of improving safety. Besides, the optimization also leads to a simplification of the circuits and therefore to a reduction of the cost of the reactor. For the implementation of the proposed new design option, some points require further R&D to validate their feasibility.

Competing Combinatorial Auctions

Combinatorial auctions are auctions in which bids can be submitted on sets of items, rather than just on individual items. These auctions are generally beneficial to both auctioneers and bidders, as they allow bidders to express their synergies for sets of items. In recent years, we have seen the advent of combinatorial auctions as well as the emergence of online market platforms with competing auctioneers. However, combinatorial auctions have largely been absent from these platforms. Our article provides an explanation for this absence by demonstrating that competition between auctioneers can reduce the attractiveness of offering combinatorial auctions. Specifically, we show that auctioneers can limit competitive pressure between themselves by allowing bids only on specific packages, where these packages differ between auctioneers. This results in market segmentation, which increases bidder competition, and consequently increases auctioneer revenues. These findings have implications for market design. In particular they imply that, for an online market platform having multiple sellers offering auctions to the same set of buyers, it might not be advantageous to offer combinatorial auctions as a design option to the competing sellers.

Conceptual Design of Gas Distribution Pipeline Network for Estates in Nigeria

This work presents the conceptual design of a gas distribution pipeline network for estates in Nigeria using the University of Abuja Staff Quarters as a case study. The problem statement was the aggressive consumption of cooking gas, referred to as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), without gas pipeline networks infrastructures to homes and estates across Nigeria but relies on cylinders with its attendant danger. The methodology includes the determination of the gas demand from the average monthly gas consumption in each of the households, the elevation head, diameter of the pipelines, gas velocity, gas mass flow rate, head losses and the pressure drop analysis of series (option 1), parallel (option 2) and grid (option 3) options. The results obtained indicate that the best gas distribution design option for the trunk, reticulation and service pipelines was the grid connections to minimize investment costs with equitable pressures at service outlets. In the selected design option, the total length of the 50.8 mm diameter trunk pipelines was 19.52 m, while the total length of the 12.7 mm diameter reticulation and service pipelines were 3,223.34 m and 1,648.46 m respectively. The quantities of fittings required for the pipeline network layout were determined for an estate of 124 houses. The mass flow rates of the LPG in the 3 pipeline sections were found to be 0.39 kg/s and total head loss based on local resistance coefficients was found to be lowest in option 3 (1,568.33 m), which also has the least pressure drop of 67.84 kPa in the trunk and reticulation pipelines. It can be concluded that the optimized design could be adopted for the gas distribution pipeline network of University of Abuja staff quarters and other estates in Nigeria, with similar elevation and buildings layout.

Approaches to graphite block characterization by gamma radionuclides and their packaging during UGR stack dismantlement

This paper presents technical and methodological approaches developed by PDC UGR to characterize the removed graphite blocks by gamma-emitting radionuclides during graphite stack dismantlement and to enable their packaging. It overviews the experimental testing of the characterization method and its findings. It also presents container design option allowing to achieve the maximum filling efficiency.