SciLights: Sustainable Building Design
Here’s a sample of some of the recent research on building design and energy efficiency.
A performance comparison of passive and low-energy buildings
Ardeshir Mahdavi, Eva-Maria Doppelbauer
Energy and Buildings, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 4 March 2010, ISSN 0378-7788, DOI: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2010.02.025.
Abstract:
This paper compares apartments in two residential blocks in Vienna; one passive and the other one low-energy. These blocks were constructed simultaneously in the same location and with comparable building construction features and floor plans. The main difference between the two blocks (other than the higher thermal insulation level in the passive building) lies in the ventilation system: passive buildings deploy controlled ventilation, whereas the low-energy buildings rely mostly on user-operated natural (window) ventilation. We measured indoor environmental conditions (indoor air temperature, relative humidity, and CO2 concentration) in two units of each block over a period of five months. Additionally, the buildings were compared in view of operation and embodied energy use, CO2 emissions, and construction costs.
Keywords: Passive house; Low-energy house; Indoor climate; Energy performance
Method and simulation program informed decisions in the early stages of building design
Steffen Petersen, Svend Svendsen
Energy and Buildings, Volume 42, Issue 7, July 2010, Pages 1113-1119, ISSN 0378-7788, DOI: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2010.02.002.
Abstract:
The early stages of building design include a number of decisions which have a strong influence on the performance of the building throughout the rest of the process. It is therefore important that designers are aware of the consequences of these design decisions. This paper presents a method for making informed decisions in the early stages of building design to fulfil performance requirements with regard to energy consumption and indoor environment. The method is operationalised in a program that utilises a simple simulation program to make performance predictions of user-defined parameter variations. The program then presents the output in a way that enables designers to make informed decisions. The method and the program reduce the need for design iterations, reducing time consumption and construction costs, to obtain the intended energy performance and indoor environment.
Keywords: Design process; Design tools; Energy performance; Indoor environment
A holistic approach to energy efficient building forms
Ahmad Okeil
Energy and Buildings, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 27 March 2010, ISSN 0378-7788, DOI: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2010.03.013.
Abstract:
Minimizing energy consumption in buildings has become an important goal in architecture and urban planning in recent years. Guidelines were developed for each climatic zone aiming at increasing solar exposure for buildings in cold climates and at reducing solar exposure for buildings in hot climates. This approach usually plans for the season with the harshest weather; often forgetting that temperatures in cities at latitude 25[degree sign] can drop below thermal comfort limits in winter and that temperatures in cities at latitude 48[degree sign] often rise above thermal comfort limits in summer. This paper argues that a holistic approach to energy efficient building forms is needed. It demonstrates a generic energy efficient building form derived by cutting solar profiles in a conventional block. Results show that the proposed building form, the Residential Solar Block (RSB), can maximize solar energy falling on facades and minimize solar energy falling on roofs and on the ground surrounding buildings in an urban area in winter; thus maximizing the potential of passive utilization of solar energy. The RSB also supports strategies for mitigating the urban heat island through increased airflow between buildings, the promotion of marketable green roofs and the reduction of transportation energy.
Keywords: Holistic design; Energy efficiency; Solar exposure; Building form; City climate; Urban heat island; Green roofs; Air flow
A decision tree method for building energy demand modeling
Yun Zhun, Fariborz Haghighat, Benjamin C.M. Fung, Hiroshi Yoshino
Energy and Buildings, In Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available online 26 April 2010, ISSN 0378-7788, DOI: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2010.04.006.
Abstract:
This paper reports the development of a building energy demand predictive model based on the decision tree method. This method is able to classify and predict categorical variables: its competitive advantage over other widely used modeling techniques, such as regression method and ANN method, lies in the ability to generate accurate predictive models with interpretable flowchart-like tree structures that enable users to quickly extract useful information. To demonstrate its applicability, the method is applied to estimate residential building energy performance indexes by modeling building energy use intensity (EUI) levels. The results demonstrate that the use of decision tree method can classify and predict building energy demand levels accurately (93% for training data and 92% for test data), identify and rank significant factors of building EUI automatically. The method can provide the combination of significant factors as well as the threshold values that will lead to high building energy performance. Moreover, the average EUI value of data records in each classified data subsets can be used for reference when performing prediction. One crucial benefit is improving building energy performance and reducing energy consumption. Another advantage of this methodology is that it can be utilized by users without requiring much computation knowledge.
Keywords: Building Energy consumption; modeling; decision tree; classification analysis
USE of the ANOVA approach for sensitive building energy design
Houcem Eddine Mechri, Alfonso Capozzoli, Vincenzo Corrado
Applied Energy, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 1 May 2010, ISSN 0306-2619, DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2010.04.001.
Abstract:
The article presents a new approach in which the Analysis Of Variance (ANOVA) is used to identify the design variables that have the most impact on the variation of the building energy performance for a typical office building and to allocate the contribution of each variable to this variation. Moreover, the study addresses an important issue concerning the identification and the setting of a set of simple and concise variables that can be used during the conceptual design stage of office buildings.
The analysis shows that the suggested approach could be useful for architects to evaluate the degree to which each design variable contributes to the variability of the building energy performance. Besides, the results may be helpful to support policymakers during the elaboration of energy codes by providing adequate information for the selection and handling of the parameters that control the variability of the energy needs.
Keywords: Building energy performance; Design variables; Analysis of variance; Probability density; Uncertainty analysis; Office buildings
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