An Assessment of Heating Load Reduction by Solar Air Heater in Residential Passive Ventilation System

This paper, we examined the technology to maximize the use of renewable energy. The passive ventilation system is expected to reduce the energy consumption of the fan power and the maintenance burden. In addition, the wall-mounted solar air heater can supply thermal energy without using any energy at all. Therefore, we propose a "passive ventilation system with a solar air heater" that combines a passive ventilation system with solar air heater to preheat the air supply and reduce the ventilation load. To evaluate the solar air heater performance in a real environment, we developed a simulation for calculating the heat collection capacity of the solar air heater, and then implemented the system in a real building for verification. Based on the measurement results, the effects of heating load reduction and prediction methods are presented.

DOCUMENTATION OF STRUCTURAL DAMAGE AND MATERIAL DECAY PHENOMENA IN H-BIM SYSTEMS

The paper presents the results of an experimental research activity aimed to individuate digital tools for an intelligent mapping of structural and material decay of historical buildings.The activities carried out are part of the context of Scan-to-BIM processes, as they establish a workflow that, starting from 3D survey data, leads to an information model enriched by information related to the conservation state of surfaces and to the structural characteristics of the real building. The experimentation has been performed with the support of a software house, looking forward to turning this workflow into an actual implementation on a BIM software. In this regard, this research becomes part of the context of the studies concerned in the digital management processes of the historical built heritage, setting and testing specific parametrical objects that add to H-BIM models the possibility of documenting and sharing graphical, numerical and descriptive data of decay phenomena and, through integrative information sheets, damage phenomena.

Evaluation of Energy Performance and Comfort: Case-Study of University Buildings with Design Adapted to Local Climate

One of the main strategies to reduce countries’ energy bills is to invest in efficient buildings. To achieve this objective, the European Union Member States have developed different methodologies to evaluate building energy performance, which are often supported by simulation tools. These tools are based on calculation engines that use databases and simplifications to attempt to bring their results close to real building performance and are mostly designed to be used at the end of the process, neglecting their role in project decision-making processes. To compensate for this situation and to obtain the most accurate results, the methodologies recommend previous work during the building design phase to adopt passive design solutions that learn from experience and aim to adapt the building design to the local climate. However, these design solutions are difficult to adopt while working with medium to large public buildings and are often not properly understood by the simulation tools. In addition, new BIM methodologies are being implemented, starting to enable proper interaction between the designer and the results, and opening up the option of introducing other types of calculations, such as building comfort, in the calculation process. Among the group of countries with limited simulation tools that are starting to be substituted is Spain, which recently launched its first BIM-based energy simulation tool. This tool aims to compensate for the limitations of the former simulation tools and opens up the option of performing comfort calculations by sharing information with other programs. The objective of this research is to evaluate, from different perspectives, the performance of this new simulation tool on three buildings at the University of Alicante. These were chosen as university campuses are responsible for large groups of buildings and belong to the group of stakeholders interested in obtaining efficient and comfortable buildings. These case studies are defined by their extreme adaptation to design recommendations for mild-warm weather. At the end of the process, the difference is measured between simulation and real building performance. The results obtained show that simulation still differs greatly from real building performance from the energy performance point of view, while the comfort evaluation shows results that are closer to the reality of the buildings.

Characterisation of the Historic Urban Landscape through the Aristotelian Four Causes: Towards Comprehensive GIS Databases

The Historic Urban Landscape provides a basis to comprehensively study the city, considering the numerous agents and stakeholders involved in the urban phenomenon. However, the characterisation of the city is challenging, due to the numerous ways of reading and using the city. Although several theoretical approaches address the process of documenting the city, there is still a gap related to the design of a generalised, holistic, and comprehensive framework. This article aims to contribute to this purpose by discussing the concept of the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) and its implications for the characterisation of the urban phenomena. The Aristotelian theory of the causes is proposed here as a suitable approach for the description, characterisation, and analysis of virtually any entity by first discussing its theoretical basis and then testing it in a real building located in the historical city, Guimarães, Portugal. A set of tools related to Geographic Information System databases are comprehensively explored during the implementation process of the approach, allowing to identify and discuss a set of limitations, challenges, and opportunities.

Digital Operative Guides for Helping First Responders in Public Buildings During Emergency Interventions

Graphical tools for firefighters in emergency interventions have been proven to be very effective. Particularly, paper-based operational guides and digital guides with 360º images were already assessed during the drills developed, during a training program in a real, but obsolete and not in use, hotel. The obtained results were considered very interesting, being part of the study previously published by this research team. In the previous study, three different methods (two of them based on graphical contents) were compared in order to communicate the features of a building to firefighters, five minutes before starting a victim rescue during the drills of the mentioned live fire training program. These good results encouraged us to continue the development of the digital guides and this paper describes the first one created for a real building, placed in Zaragoza (Spain), which is in use nowadays. In this study, two versions of the digital guide are presented, one based on a PDF file and another one implemented with online 360º images.

Optimal ESS Scheduling for Peak Shaving of Building Energy Using Accuracy-Enhanced Load Forecast

This paper proposes an optimal Energy Storage System (ESS) scheduling algorithm Building Energy Management System (BEMS). In particular, the focus is placed on how to reduce the peak load using ESS and load forecast. To this end, first, an existing deep learning-based load forecast method is applied to a real building energy prediction and it is shown that the deep learning-based method leads to an accuracy-enhanced load forecast. Second, an optimization problem is formulated in order to devise an ESS scheduling. In the optimization problem, the objective function and constraints are defined such that the peak load is reduced; the cost for electricity is minimized; and the ESS’s lifetime is elongated considering the accuracy-enhanced load forecast, real-time electricity price, and the state-of-charge of the ESS. For the purpose of demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed ESS scheduling method, it is implemented using a real building load power and temperature data. The simulation results show that the proposed method can reduce the peak load and results in smooth charging and discharging, which is important for the ESS lifetime.

Towards the Use of 3D Thermal Models in Constructions

The use of point clouds in architecture and civil engineering has, to date, been limited almost exclusively to functional geometric features. Nevertheless, hardly any works have attempted to process and explore 3D thermal models for buildings. This paper presents a method for the visualisation and exploration of 3D thermal models (3D-T) of building interiors. A 3D-T model consists of a thermal point cloud, which has been generated with a 3D thermal-scanner platform. Given a 3D-T of a building at a specific time, the user can visualise and navigate through different room models and each room can, in turn, be segmented into its architectonic components (walls, ceilings and floors), from which thermal orthoimages can be generated. When the building is sensed at different times, a 3D temporal-thermal (3D-TT) model is integrated. The temporal-thermal evolution of these structural components, along with selected zones of them, can then be analysed by performing a new type of thermal characterisation. This method has successfully been tested using real building-related data.