Numerical and experimental studies on the energy performance of thermal mass windows

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 692-721 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiangfeng Liu ◽  
Juanli Guo ◽  
Jiehui Wang

Thermal mass window is a transparent water storage envelope for improving energy efficiency of building. Currently, the embedded algorithms in all energy simulation programs disable the explicit energy simulation of building zones with thermal mass windows. The energy simulation methodology for building zones with thermal mass windows, as well as the comparative experiment for testing their energy performance, is presented in the article. For solving the inherent energy simulation problem, the integrated numerical approach based on the simplified one-dimensional nodal thermal model and the optical model was proposed. In a case study, the numerical approach was applied to an office-building zone with a typical thermal mass window to investigate its energy performance. Meanwhile, a comparative experiment on two thermal boxes with and without thermal mass windows under the identical outdoor conditions was also performed for the verification of energy performance of thermal mass windows. Both the simulation and the experimental results reveal that thermal mass windows can outperform conventional glazing in terms of thermal performance and energy efficiency. Shaded thermal mass windows in summer can produce cooling load reduction, while exposed ones in sunny winter days contribute to heating load reduction, which is beneficial for building energy saving.

2020 ◽  
pp. 014459872095251
Author(s):  
Yaolin Lin ◽  
Wei Yang ◽  
Xiaoli Hao ◽  
Changxiong Yu

About one-third of the primary energy in the world is consumed by buildings. A large amount of CO2 emission due to building energy consumption has threatened the sustainable development of the world. Improvement on the building energy performance, especially by integration with renewable energy resources has attracted interest worldwide to reduce greenhouse gas emission to make our society more sustainable. This Special Issue on building integrated renewable energy was open to all contributors in the field of building energy efficiency. The original experimental studies, numerical simulations, and reviews in all aspects of renewable energy utilization, management, and optimization have been considered. In the event, all these topics were covered in the extensive submissions accepted, but interesting papers on other aspects of building energy efficiency were also received. The purpose of this editorial is to summarize the main research findings of accepted papers in this Special Issue, including the use of renewable energy and energy saving technologies in buildings and identify a number of research questions and research directions.


Buildings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 246
Author(s):  
José Pedro Carvalho ◽  
Manuela Almeida ◽  
Luís Bragança ◽  
Ricardo Mateus

Buildings are responsible for several negative impacts on the environment, most of them related to nonrenewable energy consumption, increasing the concern regarding buildings energy efficiency. In this context, computer software has been used to estimate the energy needs of the built environment, and the Building Information Modelling (BIM) methodology can be used to simplify this process. This study aims to validate a BIM-based framework to streamline the energy analysis of Portuguese buildings, based on the method of the national regulation for the thermal performance of residential buildings. Currently, designers need to spend considerable time assessing all the building characteristics and performing the mandatory calculations for energy performance analysis. It is also intended to link the results of the energy simulation with a Building Sustainability Assessment method—SBToolPT-H. The purpose is to demonstrate how it is possible to benefit from this approach to simultaneously improve building sustainability during the design stage. To do so, different case studies were modelled in Autodesk Revit and exported to a BIM energy tool to perform energy simulation analysis. The results were validated against the official assessment method of the Portuguese thermal regulation and were successfully used to assess the SBToolPT-H energy efficiency category. The research outcomes provide design teams with a reliable BIM-based framework to improve building energy performance and to develop thermal projects while enhancing building sustainability. It also increases the knowledge about the integration of sustainability assessment in the BIM environment, providing new insights for complete integration.


Author(s):  
E. M. Ratnikov ◽  
D. O. Milko

Annotation Purpose. Development of a program and methods for conducting experimental studies of the extrusion process with the definition of parameters and modes of operation of the extruder to improve its energy performance. Methods. Methods of mathematical statistics, synthesis, analysis, description and modeling were used. Results. The application of mathematical methods, in particular mathematical planning, reduces the number of experiments several times, and allows to evaluate the role of influencing factors, obtain a mathematical model of the process and determine the optimal conditions for its parameters and modes, etc. Conclusions. The methodology for experimental studies of a screw extruder is presented with the necessary equipment and methodology for processing the obtained experimental data. A mathematical method of planning, which reduces the number of experiments several times, allows us to evaluate the role of factors affecting productivity and energy intensity is presented. Keywords: extruder, auger, nutrients, research methodology, extrusion, processing, feed.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (11) ◽  
pp. 3311
Author(s):  
Víctor Pérez-Andreu ◽  
Carolina Aparicio-Fernández ◽  
José-Luis Vivancos ◽  
Javier Cárcel-Carrasco

The number of buildings renovated following the introduction of European energy-efficiency policy represents a small number of buildings in Spain. So, the main Spanish building stock needs an urgent energy renovation. Using passive strategies is essential, and thermal characterization and predictive tests of the energy-efficiency improvements achieving acceptable levels of comfort for their users are urgently necessary. This study analyzes the energy performance and thermal comfort of the users in a typical Mediterranean dwelling house. A transient simulation has been used to acquire the scope of Spanish standards for its energy rehabilitation, taking into account standard comfort conditions. The work is based on thermal monitoring of the building and a numerical validated model developed in TRNSYS. Energy demands for different models have been calculated considering different passive constructive measures combined with real wind site conditions and the behavior of users related to natural ventilation. This methodology has given us the necessary information to decide the best solution in relation to energy demand and facility of implementation. The thermal comfort for different models is not directly related to energy demand and has allowed checking when and where the measures need to be done.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 235
Author(s):  
Fernando Martín-Consuegra ◽  
Fernando de Frutos ◽  
Ignacio Oteiza ◽  
Carmen Alonso ◽  
Borja Frutos

This study quantified the improvement in energy efficiency following passive renovation of the thermal envelope in highly inefficient residential complexes on the outskirts of the city of Madrid. A case study was conducted of a single-family terrace housing, representative of the smallest size subsidized dwellings built in Spain for workers in the nineteen fifties and sixties. Two units of similar characteristics, one in its original state and the other renovated, were analyzed in detail against their urban setting with an experimental method proposed hereunder for simplified, minimal monitoring. The dwellings were compared on the grounds of indoor environment quality parameters recorded over a period covering both winter and summer months. That information was supplemented with an analysis of the energy consumption metered. The result was a low-cost, reasonably accurate measure of the improvements gained in the renovated unit. The monitoring output data were entered in a theoretical energy efficiency model for the entire neighborhood to obtain an estimate of the potential for energy savings if the entire urban complex were renovated.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 1849
Author(s):  
Alexandre F. Santos ◽  
Pedro D. Gaspar ◽  
Heraldo J. L. de Souza

This article considers the ideal storage conditions for multiple vaccine brands, such as Pfizer, Moderna, CoronaVac, Oxford–AstraZeneca, Janssen COVID-19 and Sputnik V. Refrigerant fluid options for each storage condition, thermal load to cool each type of vaccine and environmental impacts of refrigerants are compared. An energy simulation using the EUED (energy usage effectiveness design) index was developed. The Oxford–AstraZeneca, Janssen COVID-19 and CoronaVac vaccines show 9.34-times higher energy efficiency than Pfizer. In addition, a TEWI (total equivalent warming impact) simulation was developed that prioritizes direct environmental impacts and indirect in refrigeration. From this analysis, it is concluded that the cold storage of Oxford–AstraZeneca, Janssen COVID-19 and CoronaVac vaccines in Brazil generates 35-times less environmental impact than the Pfizer vaccine.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 3444
Author(s):  
Sergey A. Lavrenko ◽  
Dmitriy I. Shishlyannikov

The authors focus on the process of potash ore production by a mechanized method. They show that currently there are no approved procedures for assessing the performance of heading-and-winning machines operating in the conditions of potash mines. This causes difficulties in determining the field of application of heading-and-winning machines, complicates the search for implicit technical solutions for the modernisation of existing models of mining units, prohibits real-time monitoring of the stability of stope-based technological processes and makes it difficult to assess the performance of the services concerning mining enterprises. The work represents an aggregate assessment of the performance of heading-and-winning machines for potash mines by determining complex indicators describing the technological and technical levels of organising the work in stopes. Such indicators are the coefficients of productivity and energy efficiency, respectively. Experimental studies have been carried out in the conditions of the potash mine of the Verkhnekamskoye potassium-magnesium salt deposit to assess the performance of the latest and most productive Ural-20R heading-and-winning machines manufactured in Russia. Using the above methodological approaches, this paper shows that the unsatisfactory technological performance of the studied machine is due to the low productivity of the mine district transport. The average productivity coefficient was 0.29. At the same time, high values of the energy efficiency coefficient show that the productivity of the machine is on par with design conditions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7359
Author(s):  
Sadaf Alam ◽  
Miimu Airaksinen ◽  
Risto Lahdelma

Key stakeholders in industry are highly responsible for achieving energy performance targets. Particularly, this paper assesses the attitudes, approaches, and experiences of Finnish construction professionals regarding energy-efficient buildings, or nZEBs. A three-tier investigation was conducted including surveys and expert interviews with several stakeholders. The structure of this approach was informed by preliminary data and information available on the Finnish construction sector. The questionnaire showed that the stakeholders ranked energy efficiency and embodied energy/carbon as very important. The survey highlighted that the importance of the embodied carbon CO2 in the materials is less important than the energy efficiency from many of the stakeholders’ points of view. “Energy efficiency” is very important for ESCOs, contractors, and facility managers followed by architects, HVAC engineers, and construction design engineers. Nevertheless, the opinions of architects ranked “embodied energy CO2” as the most important regarding nZEB. When it comes to the importance of “running time emissions” toward nZEB, contractors and ESCO companies ranked it as 1 for importance followed by property owners (78%) and tenants (75%). It is very fascinating to see from the survey that “running time carbon emissions” has been ranked 1 (very important) by all stakeholders. This study will enable construction industry stakeholders to make provisions for overcoming the barriers, gaps, and challenges identified in the practices of the nZEB projects. It will also inform the formulation of policies that drive retrofit uptake.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 1348
Author(s):  
A. Rashkovan ◽  
S.D. Amar ◽  
U. Bieder ◽  
G. Ziskind

The present paper provides a physically sound numerical modeling of liquid flows experimentally observed inside a vertical circular cylinder with a stationary envelope, rotating bottom and open top. In these flows, the resulting vortex depth may be such that the rotating bottom disk becomes partially exposed, and rather peculiar polygon shapes appear. The parameters and features of this work are chosen based on a careful analysis of the literature. Accordingly, the cylinder inner radius is 145 mm and the initial water height is 60 mm. The experiments with bottom disk rotation frequencies of 3.0, 3.4, 4.0 and 4.6 Hz are simulated. The chosen frequency range encompasses the regions of ellipse and triangle shapes as observed in the experimental studies reported in the literature. The free surface flow is expected to be turbulent, with the Reynolds number of O(105). The Large Eddy Simulation (LES) is adopted as the numerical approach, with a localized dynamic Subgrid-Scale Stresses (SGS) model including an energy equation. Since the flow obviously requires a surface tracking or capturing method, a volume-of-fluid (VOF) approach has been chosen based on the findings, where this method provided stable shapes in the ranges of parameters found in the corresponding experiments. Expected ellipse and triangle shapes are revealed and analyzed. A detailed character of the numerical results allows for an in-depth discussion and analysis of the mechanisms and features which accompany the characteristic shapes and their alterations. As a result, a unique insight into the polygon flow structures is provided.


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