Thermal and structural properties of a hemp–lime biocomposite

Abstract The need to reduce greenhouse gases emission produced by the building sector leads to the research of renewable and less impacting materials that can replace traditional ones. This subject has encouraged new researches on biocomposite concretes with the aim to exploit renewable resources like vegetal fibres intended as materials whose production processes are generally characterized by low costs and energy demand. This biocomposite is obviously much lighter than concrete and, therefore, can be suitably used in such cases where a structure cannot be overloaded, for instance in the realization of a green covering on top of a preexistent building. In this work, a first analysis of the…

A general model for predicting the environmental impact of urban transportation

In this paper a generalised model is described for the analysis of the pollutant substances released in the atmosphere by urban transportation means. It essentially requires data referring to the running transportation fleet, year by year, that are generally on disposal of the local administrators through official data-bases. Pollutant emissions are here taken into account by means of the algorithms provided by the COPERT methodology, that applies to many European countries. The method, by means of a suitable statistical analysis of data concerning the running car fleet, allows also the definition of an useful indicator, that is the “yearly average vehicle”, that can be assumed as represent…

Implementing the sustainable energy (and climate) action plans: quasi-steady state or dynamic building modeling approach?

Actions contemplated in Sustainable Energy (and Climate) Action Plans (SEAPs), which municipalities adhering to the EU initiative called “The Covenant of Mayors” are required to prepare, regard many sectors, among which are buildings. To implement such plans, it is necessary to make use of methods for predicting energy use in buildings. Technicians involved in this tend to adopt easy-touse simulation models because of the common mid-level expertise of the offices involved. However, such simplified methods could result in a less accurate evaluation of the energy demand of buildings. In this paper the suitability of the quasi-steady state and the dynamic approach, in the frame of these new ur…

Functional relationships between emission by cars and urban pollutant concentrations: a simplified phenomenological approach

This work is aimed at providing a contribution toward the singling out of a functional relationship between the traffic flow in urban contexts and the physical dynamic of the pollutant diffusion. The values of CO concentrations in selected sites of the urban layout are obtained by utilizing as input the number of vehicles predicted by the phenomenological model here introduced. This represents a quite different approach in the simulation of the pollutant dynamics in urban contexts. One of the main features of the proposed traffic model, is the capability of realistically reproducing the characteristic of the traffic flows. The feasibility of the model to be applied in other urban situations…

Mobilità sostenibile per il miglioramento della qualità ambientale urbana: obiettivi, metodi ed applicazioni

A Solar Pond for Feeding a Thermoelectric Generator or an Organic Rankine Cycle System

The world energy demand is continuously growing, which means an increase in consumption for all modern fuels or stronger effort on the development and improvement of renewable technologies. Moreover, Developing Countries claims more energy and they have often wide unutilized or unusable lands. The solar energy represents a useful opportunity for these Countries. The Solar Pond is both a solar collector and a thermal storage for long period and is suitable to use in wide sunny areas. Solar pond technology is able to supply heat for several applications requiring low-grade thermal energy or for electrical power production. In order to produce electrical energy from solar ponds it is necessary…

Colours and building thermal balance: the impact of coating colour on energy loads

Il progetto integrato degli edifici: prestazioni indoor e criteri di ecocompatibilità dei materiali

Green Roofs’ End of Life: A Literature Review

Green roofs are increasingly being used in urban settings because of the many benefits they are capable of providing. Because of their widespread use, the issue of how to conduct proper disposal of green roofs once they have reached their end of life is beginning to be raised. The present study is a review of the scientific literature published between 2007 and 2022. Specifically, the contribution of this review study is to clarify whether a waste scenario exists and if so, identify the methodological frameworks and/or criteria used in green roof-related studies to establish the end-of-life scenario of a given green roof, which will then be used to analyze its environmental and economic per…

Study of Influence of the LED Technologies on Visual and Subjective/Individual Aspects

The general aim of this paper is that to further deepen and elaborate the results obtained in a previous study of the authors, in which the relationship between the characteristics of five different types of LED lamps and the humans non-image-forming reactions were investigated, by conducting a more detailed statistical analysis and by highlighting the neurological aspects.

Sull'analisi della mobilità sostenibile - nuovi metodi con i modelli di calcolo

Toward a European Eco-label brand for residential buildings: Holistic or by-components approaches?

The Eco-label scheme is becoming ever more important in the environmental certification of products and services, especially in light of the recent ambitious aim of containing greenhouse emissions and improving the efficiency of utilizing energy sources. A recently-introduced hypothesis concerns the European Eco-label scheme relating to buildings, in the awareness that the construction industry is of primary importance to the whole economic and social life of states. This scheme should adopt an integrated approach to environmental problems and include construction, day-to-day management, and the possible disposal of building materials, throughout the life cycle of the building. In addition,…

Assessing Urban Environmental Sustainability by Means of Indicators: The Case of the Heritage Buildings

Man in developed countries is looking for new and more suitable paradigms of a correct evolution, founded on an improved level of quality of life, on a pollution-free environment and on the availability of rising amount of time to be spent in pleasure and cultural activities.

The relavance of indoor comfort in the process of prisoners’ rehabilitation: a case study

The history of prisons is full of contradictions in every historical period and the evolution of prison buildings expresses many faces in the history of each country. The concept of punishment imposed on the offender has undergone several changes over the centuries, related to culture, politics, and to the evolution of the human thought. For centuries, tiny closed spaces have been adapted for the offenders' detention, without ever thinking to create an ad hoc functional distribution of spaces. The issue of the design of prisons has often been a reason of debate, and it is still an open field of discussion. From a legal point of view, in recent years there has been a rethinking of the proble…

Se l'olio d'oliva è sostenibile

Proposal validation of a phenomenoogical model for predicting the vehicular environmental impact

Pollutant concentrations in urban canyon mainly come from vehicular emissions. The search of a quantitative relationship, linking pollutant emissions from mobile sources to the resulting concentrations, at different receptor sites, has brought us to develop a phenomenological model able to calculate the number of running vehicles once the pollutant ground level concentration of CO is known. Unfortunately, we haven't the possibility to test this model by a direct inspection of the traffic flow. Despite this fact it is our aim to validate the proposed traffic model. Mathematical models are considered useful tools in supporting air quality evaluations. The structure of the models usually embod…

Role of Green Coverings in Mitigating Heat Island Effects: An Analysis of Physical Models

Worldwide, governments are introducing several rules and standards in the aim of limiting the quantity of primary energy for air conditioning of buildings and supporting the use of renewable source of energy for generating thermal and electric energy to be utilized in buildings such as the European Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings [1]. Along with these interventions, another important action takes currently place in the building sector, that is the introduction of passive structural components of the envelope, able to reduce the requirements of energy for air conditioning purposes. Among these building components, the so-called green roofs are becoming more and more interest…

The control of indoor thermal comfort conditions: introducing a fuzzy adaptive controller

The control and the monitoring of indoor thermal conditions represents a pre-eminent task with the aim of ensuring suitable working and living spaces to people. Especially in industrialised countries, in fact, several rules and standards have been recently released in order of providing technicians with suitable design tools and effective indexes and parameters for the checking of the indoor microclimate. Among them, predicted mean vote (PMV) index is often adopted for assessing the thermal comfort conditions of thermal moderate environments. Unfortunately, the PMV index is characterised by non-linear features, that could determine some difficulties when monitoring and controlling HVAC equi…

Dati climatici per gli edifici sostenibili

Suitability of Some Existing Damage Indexes for Regulating Contracts Between Curators of Museums and HVAC Maintenance and Management Companies

Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) systems in museums are called to properly control important microclimate parameters, not only for visitors’ wellbeing, but mostly for works of art preservation. Accordingly, in case of interruptions occurring to HVAC systems, due to maintenance interventions or drawbacks, it is essential to guarantee the shortest possible period of disservice to which possible damages for the works of art are related. In this regard the aim of this work is to introduce a protocol to follow to support curators in regulate the stipulation of contracts with external companies for a more effective management and maintenance of the HVAC systems in order to preserv…

Comparison Between Conventional and Vegetated Roof by Means of a Dynamic Simulation

In this paper, a dynamic simulation of a building located in the Campus University of Palermo, Italy, has been carried out. We considered two different scenarios; in the first one, the building as it is, with a conventional covering, while in the second one the roof was equipped with a green roof. The results of the two simulations have been compared, suggesting that such building component could contribute to the energy savings of the building. However, it has to be considered as part of other possible actions devoted to improve the energy efficiency of the whole building. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://…

Including sustainable criteria in territorial energy plans: an application to the building sector in Sicily

Analisi delle prestazioni energetiche degli edifici residenziali sulla base del confronto tra dati di consumo calcolati e misurati

Le Pubbliche Amministrazioni sono costantemente impegnate a valutare la realizzabilità di interventi di riqualificazione energetica del comparto edilizio esistente, al fine di raggiungere gli obiettivi di efficienza energetica fissati dalle direttive europee. Come noto, il comparto edilizio rappresenta un settore ad alto potenziale in tal senso. Tale potenziale, però, può essere verificato solo a partire da un conoscenza del reale consumo energetico degli edifici esistenti, compito non sempre facile in quanto la domanda di energia, e i relativi consumi energetici, dipendono da fattori di difficile standardizzazione. Allo scopo di evidenziare le possibili differenze tra una valutazione dei c…

The Landfilling of Municipal Solid Waste and the Sustainability of the Related Transportation Activities

The management of municipal solid waste is a crucial issue to address as we move toward the decarbonization of urban contexts. Not by chance, this sector plays a relevant role in the Covenant of Mayors program, whereby municipalities are called to design their own Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SECAPs). However, despite new regulations strongly pushing the recycling and reuse of materials contained in municipal waste, many cities still use large landfills. As part of the overall environmental pressure exerted by these urban systems, the transport of waste from collection points to landfills or treatment facilities must be considered in order to correctly assess the full environmental burd…

Experimental investigation on a mobile house supplied via a hybrid pv and wind energy source

Solar radiation for buildings application: generating data set for mediterranean sites

University campuses as small-scale models of cities: Quantitative assessment of a low carbon transition path

Abstract The energy efficiency interventions and rehabilitation actions regarding university campuses are characterized by an emblematic impact, representing significant examples of good practices that a given community could adopt, even at the city level. Starting from the idea that campuses may be regarded as small scale models of cities, a quantitative method for estimating to which extent the adoption of a given set of interventions by a municipality could contribute to make such city close to a nearly zero energy profile is proposed. To accomplish this task, the study considers the low carbon transition path of the campus of the University of Palermo and applies a simple method that, i…

Retrofitting existing buildings by means of innovative envelope components: low-impacting new assemblies

Current policies addressing the energy efficiency of buildings aimed at the control of their overall primary energy demand, require not only that the edifice envelope has to be properly designed to optimize its thermal performances, but also that the eco-friendly properties of the involved building materials have to be properly taken into account, in order of assessing all the associated environmental costs. In fact, the design of envelope structures that are able to realize proper levels of thermal insulation and, in the same time, to employ materials characterized by low environmental impacts, are believed as the most effective strategies to be adopted in the aim of addressing the above-m…

Old or new occupants of energy rehabilitated buildings. Two different approaches for hierarchizing group of buildings

Abstract Public Administrations are frequently entitled to intervene in building stocks with energy rehabilitation actions. Unfortunately, the monetary budget at their disposal is generally limited and, consequently, a prioritization criterion is needed to optimize its allocation. The classification of the building energy performance is increasingly used by Public Administrations for this purpose. Here we argue that a proper prioritization criterion should depend upon the potential subjects to which the rehabilitated buildings are given back. If the energy rehabilitation is conducted on buildings that will be assigned to new dwellers, it would be preferable to use the energy class – which i…

Indoor Comfort in School Buildings: The Case Study of Palermo

Buildings primary energy consumption in developed countries accounts for about 40% of whole uses. Therefore, the European Union has released many regulations, concerning energy saving issues; particularly, it has enacted Directive 2002/91/EC regarding the energy performance of buildings, and its Recast Directive 2010/31/EU, that promotes the Nearly Zero Energy Building targets, introducing more strict parameters in this aim. Furthermore, the latter Directive asks Member States to include within their national plans measures aimed at supporting public authorities to become early adopters of building energy efficiency improvements. In the same time, Public Authorities should implement effecti…

A simplified method for the indirect evaluation of the “embodied pollution” of natural stones (marble) working chain to be applied for achieving the Ecolabel brand of the product

The constant push toward higher energy and environmental quality buildings makes the acquisition of excellence marks for products and materials, of which the building envelope is constituted, increasingly urgent. The recent European (EU) Commission Decision 2021/476 is applicable to marble used in construction. It sets out criteria that companies producing marble have to accomplish to obtain the EU Ecolabel brand. Unfortunately, some criteria such as, for example, those that refer to the application of the Environmental Management System, ISO 14001 and EMAS certifications, or those that concern the ISO 14067 as well as the Product Environment Footprint procedure, are difficult to apply for …

Towards a More Sustainable City: The Role of the Daylight Factor in Evaluating the Energy Requirements of Buildings

The Daylight factor is the reference parameter used in Energy Standard EN15193:2008 to assess daylight contribution in the energy performance of buildings. But its efficacy in putting in relation buildings energy performance, daylight availability and visual tasks is now a subject of discussion in literature. In fact, the daylight factor is a static indicator independent from building geometry and environmental parameters. From the energy point of view, it has still to be assessed if it can ensure when the switch of artificial light is needed, representing therefore the most disadvantageous outdoor illuminance conditions. The goal of this study is demonstrating if the daylight factor calcul…

Realizzazione di una stazione di misura delle aree proiettate del corpo umano

Celle a combustibile per applicazioni stazionarie cogenerative

Controllo intelligente nella gestione energetica degli alberghi

L’avvento di controlli intelligenti nella gestione delle apparecchiature elettriche di tipo domotico negli hotel consente risparmi energetici significativi e tali da giustificare l’adozione diffusa di queste tecniche.

Energy Performance and Indoor Comfort of a 1930s Italian School Building: A case study

Reducing energy consumption in the building tertiary sector, which accounts for a big share of the total energy use (and related CO 2 emissions) at European and Italian level, represent a strong element of safety for the EU-28. On the other hand, it is important to improve the, often overlooked, indoor comfort conditions of Italian schools since they have a significant impact on the well-being, productivity, health and safety of their occupants. Thus, it is appropriate to take into account the combination of both needs, also in light of the climate change scenario, in order to identify adequate improvement measures and justify such economic investment. This paper brings a contribution to th…

Performance evaluation of a bio-based composite building material made of natural resin mixed with hay

Recent years have seen an increasing public interest in issues related to energy saving and environmental pollution reduction in the building sector. As a result, many directives have been issued, the most important being the Directive 2010/31/EU (EPBD Recast) on the energy performance of buildings, which requires that “Member States shall ensure that by 31 December 2020 all new buildings are nearly zero-energy buildings”. This goal can be obtained not only by reducing energy demand for heating and cooling, but also, for example, by improving building envelope performances. In this work, a first analysis of the thermal and structural behaviour of a biocomposite material, constituted by a na…

Conflicting needs of the thermal indoor environment of museums: In search of a practical compromise

Thermal indoor microclimate conditions in museum buildings refer to two important requirements: the preservation of works of art and the comfort of visitors to these buildings and/or those working inside them. Unfortunately, different works of art have different internal parameters which render the management and control of the indoor thermal microclimate difficult. In this work the values proposed by various standards for the thermal environment of museum buildings have been revised. Moreover, the indoor microclimatic conditions relating to people's comfort have been described, with the aim of singling out possible common ranges for these parameters. With this aim, a useful simultaneousnes…

Metodi adattativi e modelli multi agente per la valutazione del comfort indoor

Enhancing values of roofs albedo for lowering cities’ air temperature and electric demand of buildings: a simple economic evaluation

Abstract In cities vegetated roofs are becoming more popular because they can mitigate Urban Heat Island phenomena by decreasing the outdoor air temperature in summer. This decrease reduces the electric energy demand for climatization of buildings, which, in front of a milder climate, will recur less to mechanical tools for guaranteeing thermal comfort conditions to occupants. Cities can registered another indirect positive effect: the reduced cooling energy demand, limits the heat released by the climatization systems’ external unities toward the urban open spaces, thus lowering the outdoor air temperature. Therefore, the outdoor surface temperature of green, as well as cool roofs, can be …

Evaluating human body area factors from digital images: A measurement tool for a better evaluation of the ergonomics of working places

The evaluation of comfort conditions of people in confined environments requires a knowledge of the human body's radiation data. This is essentially represented by the projected area of the body in a given direction. From this factor, other important parameters can be computed, such as projected area factors and angle factors. Presently, these parameters are evaluated using graphs deriving from a pioneering field study carried out by P.O. Fanger for which a piece of apparatus using mirrors and weight operations on film negatives is used. Obviously, these graphs, apart from referring to a limited number of subjects, also involve some reading errors. With the aim of enlarging the number of ex…

An experimental study on relationship between LED lamp characteristics and non image-forming

The general aim of the experimental study, presented in this paper, was that to investigate the relationship between the characteristics of five different types of LED (Light Emitting Diode) lamps, which are nowadays those allowing the highest energy consumption reduction, and the humans non image-forming (NIF) reactions.

Radiative heat exchanges of people in complex geometry buildings: An experimentally based algorithm for computing angle factors

Thermal comfort of people working or living in confined spaces depends, to a large extent, on the radiative thermal exchanges. These contributions are expressed, among other things, as a function of the mean radiant temperature that, in the general cases where there is a presence of high intensity sources, must be expressed as a function of the angle factors between subjects and the surrounding surfaces of enclosures. Angle factors, in turn, depend on the projected area factors. Despite this evidence, at the present there is a lack in the availability of simple and reliable methods capable of computing angle factors of people in assigned postures with respect to complex geometry buildings. …

An Anthropometric Analysis of Seated and Standing People

Thermal radiative exchanges of the human body with surrounding surfaces play an essential role in describing the thermal conditions of people in a given environment. Moreover, they could be induced by, among other causes, the presence of high intensity radiant sources, like lighting spots or infrared heating panels. This implies that a suitable set of radiation data related to human body anthropometry is required. This set of data mainly comprises the body surface area, the clothing area factor, the effective radiation area factor, and projected area factors. Several analytical or experimental methods may be utilized in order to compute these parameters. A detailed description of the most c…

Fostering the energy efficiency through the energy savings: The case of the University of Palermo

This paper reports the strategy implemented by the Palermo University (Italy) aimed at fostering the energy performance of its campus, particularly towards financing energy saving measures. The basic idea is that the money saved through the energy efficiency actions, constitute the main flywheel to fund further savings and energy efficiency interventions. Results of this paper might bring a useful contribution to the energy planning of cities, since campuses may be regarded as emblematic case study of what can be done in cities because they reproduce, at a little scale, the functioning of wider urban contexts.

Electrical Power from seawave energy

Current energy crisis and general concerns on environmental issues have triggered an ever increasing effort on harvesting renewable energies. Amongst renewable energy sources, sea wave energy is definitely the one that has been less utilised. This is probably caused by three reasons: i) the low energy concentration in the sea waves, at least in the sites where it is technically possible to install conversion stations: ii) the strong technical novelties that are required to extract the energy that is contained in a highly and stochastically variable motion; iii) the difficulty to find a suitable electrical system able to convert the energy contained in the motion of the sea into electrical e…

Greening a university campus: trends of energy consumption and possible sustainable paths

Recent years have seen an increasing public interest in issues related to energy saving and environmental pollution reduction of public buildings, such as those in university campuses, that should set an example of sustainable development. University campuses are usually characterized by the daily presence of a high number of people working and living in a relatively limited area. They are sites of a wide spread of functions, ranging from teaching to laboratory activities, from housing and food preparation to local transportation. All these activities require remarkable amount of energy that, actually, are not always utilized with the best possible efficiency. This calls for a deep reconsid…

The Role of Local Administrations in the Energy Retrofit of Public Buildings: a Case Study

Recent regulations, and related incentives, concerning urban sustainability issued at European and national level place particular attention on improving the energy and environmental performance of buildings. In this sense, a particular focus has been placed on public buildings (offices, schools, hospitals, etc..), being these centers of gravitation of social life. Among the EU strategies on this matter is an initiative called Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP), through which local administrators, based on the knowledge of their territory, are called to establish appropriate energy strategies and commit to achieving their targets within the timeframe set by the EU. The prese…

Efficienza energetica degli edifici - Istruzioni per l'uso. Prestazioni e certificazioni: arriva la Norma UNI EN 15217:2007. Che si aggiunge ai dlgs 192 e 311.

Assessing the Ecological Footprint of an Urban Transportation System

The ecological footprint methodology is here applied to the urban transport system of the Italian town of Palermo (Sicily). By only using the current running fleet, a synthetic indicator represented by the "equivalent bio-productive" land, corresponding to the actual transport configuration, will be built up. This indicator can be usefully adopted for ranking various options in the urban context referring, for example, to different arrangements of the transportation demand between private and public means. This could allow local administrations to environmentally hierarchizing alternative plans concerning the urban transportation

Forecasting pollutant emission of the urban vehicular running fleet by means of synthetic indicators

The simple method here presented, devoted to the evaluation of the environmental performances of transportation systems, is mainly referred to the pollutant emission factors released within the "COPERT III” approach. The method is here adopted for building up a synthetic indicator of the whole pollutant emissions from the transportation sector in a given urban area. The indicator can be utilised in the aim of comparing the environmental effects of different transportation policies: the introducing of modal changes in the transportation demand from private cars to public vehicles, for examples, could be suitably analysed. Apart the knowledge of the proper pollutant emission factors, the meth…

Urban Energy Hubs and Microgrids: Smart Energy Planning for Cities

In this chapter, we try to connect the urban design features with energy consumption and consequent pollution parameters. After a review of a selected set of approaches to Urban Energy Systems study with a special focus on electrical power systems, urban energy systems are proposed as networks of multi-source hybrid energy hubs, where different energy flows are collected at the same bus and can be stored, delivered or transformed as needed. Resources at the hub and infrastructures interact with each other; therefore, both definition and boundaries of such energy systems at urban level are difficult to be clearly outlined. Similarly, the possibility to generate new operational models based o…

Vegetation growth parameters and leaf temperature: Experimental results from a six plots green roofs' system

Abstract The paper provides a contribution for populating database of three physical parameters needed to model energy performance of buildings with green roofs: “coverage ratio” ( σ f ), leaf area index (LAI) and leaf temperature ( T f ). On purpose, six plant species were investigated experimentally: Phyla nordiflora, Aptenia lancifolia , Mesembryanthenum barbatus , Gazania nivea, Gazania uniflora , and Sedum . Proper ranges of the cited parameters have been found for each species. The here indicated ranges of σ f values refer to different growth levels of the species in the same lapse of time, that is four months. Single measured LAI values are also reported for the same plants. As for t…

Organic Rankine Cycle fed by flat-plate solar collectors: a case study

L'attuale tendenza dell’utilizzo di sistemi di risorse energetiche distribuite (sistemi DER), insieme con il crescente sviluppo tecnologico, incoraggia l'uso di tecnologie capaci di recuperare efficacemente energia da fonti di calore a temperatura bassa o moderata, che rappresentano un'opzione essenziale per affrontare le problematiche energetiche ed ambientali. In questo contesto, i cicli Rankine a fluido organico (ORC) si stanno affermando come una tecnologia molto promettente tra quelle attualmente disponibili, in particolare per bassi valori di temperatura. I principi di funzionamento dei sistemi ORC sono essenzialmente gli stessi di quelli del ciclo Rankine. Nei sistemi ORC, l’acqua è …

Smart city and public lighting

The smart city is increasingly becoming a concept of reference for what concerns the planning and the spatial development of cities. The concept of smart city cannot be easily standardized. It is based on a multi-service and multi-sectorial planning regarding various urban functions (energy, mobility, waste, etc.) and places them under a common denominator: the use of advanced technologies for minimizing resources consumption and simultaneously increase the quality of life of the citizens. This paper aims to give an overview on the concept of smart city and outline what, at present, are the main intervention areas considered at European level. Then the paper focuses on the public lighting t…

Analisi dei parametri antropometrici di etnie diverse ai fini del comfort termoigrometrico indoor

In questo lavoro vengono presentati i risultati di uno studio volto a verificare se l’algoritmo, proposto da P.O. Fanger, relativo allo scambio termico radiativo tra corpo umano ed ambiente indoor, possa essere utilizzato per tutte le popolazioni mondiali: un erronea stima dello scambio termico radiativo può condurre infatti ad una erronea valutazione delle prestazioni di comfort indoor. In queste condizioni risulta pertanto importante valutare, con elevata accuratezza, i parametri coinvolti nel calcolo del flusso termico radiativo tra corpo umano e ambiente indoor circostante, tra i quali ritroviamo quelli dipendenti dalle caratteristiche propriamente geometriche del corpo umano: area proi…

Smart Cities and Municipal Building Regulation for Energy Efficiency

The “Smart Cities & Communities Initiative” of the Strategic Energy Technology Plan is the strategic European response to lead cities and regions to a carbon free future. In this contest energy efficiency in buildings has a crucial role and must be considered in a holistic approach to the urban planning. In order to implement the minimum requirements stated by the European Directive about the Energy Performance of Buildings, and in order to consider different planning layers with the view to a smart city planning, local regulations are a key factor aiming at sustainable territorial planning. This paper investigates the possibility to draft a basic structure of Municipal Building Regulat…

The economic and environmental sustainability in the choice of materials to improve the performances of existing buildings

The concept of sustainability in the construction industry cannot, above all in this historical moment, include in its parameters considerations about economic, social and environmental factors. All this factors are deeply connected with the context, both for climatic reasons and for economic and social reasons. Technical valuations about the choice and use of materials must be motivated by reality in which we work, in the perspective of quality of process as satisfaction of the users but also, in this case, of the producers. The aim of the proposed study is the valutation and individuation of suitable materials for the improvement of the energetic performances of existing buildings which w…

People comfort and artwork saving in museums: comparing indoor requisites

In museums, environmental indoor conditions should, contemporaneously, preserve the exhibited works of art and ensure the comfort conditions for people. Unfortunately, human and artworks requirements are characterised by different values of the physical indoor parameters that, occasionally, could become conflicting. In the paper, these problems are addressed by means of a literature analysis, with a specific attention to thermal comfort conditions of people. The possibility of finding common ranges of values for both requisites is finally discussed. Some recent technical recommendations on the matter have also been considered for indicating some HVAC equipment and appliances to be adopted i…

Il progetto Mentori per la Didattica dell’Università degli Studi di Palermo: l’estensione del numero dei partecipanti, la figura del Mentore Senior e le esperienze di innovazione didattica

L’esperienza del Progetto Mentore (PM) nasce nel 2013 dalla percezione, da parte di diversi docenti dell’Ateneo di Palermo, che l’Accademia italiana stesse abbandonando a sé stessa la funzione didattica, confidando di fatto nelle capacità di ognuno di organizzarsi, aggiornarsi e valutarsi (Felisatti, Scialdone, Cannarozzo, & Pennisi, 2019; Caradonna, Morale, Pace, Scargiali, Scialdone, & Auteri, 2020). Tale impressione era tra le altre cose basata sul fatto che nessuno dei sistemi di valutazione dei docenti universitari (il processo di abilitazione scientifica nazionale, ma anche la stessa valutazione della qualità dei corsi di studio) mettesse enfasi sulla necessità da parte del do…

Visually low-impacting methods for the measurement of parameters related to IAQ risk indicators in exhibition halls

Microclimate for cultural heritage plays a fundamental role in the degradation process of artefacts exhibited in museums. Generally, the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) monitoring inside museums is based on conventional measurements of thermo-hygrometry parameters and longtime averaged measurements of atmospheric pollutants’ concentration. Unfortunately, all these approaches require electric supply and are usually characterized by a noticeable visual impact on the exhibition space, which clearly negatively affects the visitors’ experience. This paper intends to revisit and discuss a methodology (and its test application on field, to estimate the risk of damage of three artefacts displayed in an ol…

Disposal of green roofs: A contribution to identifying an “Allowed by legislation” end–of–life scenario and facilitating their environmental analysis

The rapid and widespread deployment of green roofs requires the need to address their disposal and to assess the environmental impact of this phase of their life cycle to understand whether their current large-scale application may pose a problem. A review of the literature on green roofs environmental performance (particularly Life Cycle Assessment studies) has highlighted the lack of a standardized, commonly adopted, procedure for determining the treatments, recovery and/or disposal, to be assigned to waste from the removal of green roofs. In this regard, it should be mentioned that there is a lack of ad hoc legislation on the disposal of this technology (to the best of the authors’ knowl…

Visually low-impacting methods for the measurement of parameters related to IAQ risk indicators in exhibition halls

Microclimate for cultural heritage plays a fundamental role in the degradation process of artefacts exhibited in museums. Generally, the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) monitoring inside museums is based on conventional measurements of thermo-hygrometry parameters and longtime averaged measurements of atmospheric pollutants’ concentration. Unfortunately, all these approaches require electric supply and are usually characterized by a noticeable visual impact on the exhibition space, which clearly negatively affects the visitors’ experience. This paper intends to revisit and discuss a methodology (and its test application on field, to estimate the risk of damage of three artefacts displayed in an ol…

Valorizzazione e conservazione delle opere d'arte attraverso un'appropiata scelta dello spettro della sorgente luminosa

La crescente domanda di cultura, insieme con il miglioramento delle condizioni di vivibilità all'interno degli spazi espositivi, incoraggia le persone a trascorrere una crescente quantità di tempo nei musei dove, insieme con mostre di manufatti ed opere d’arte e documenti storici, hanno spesso luogo cene conviviali, concerti musicali e sessioni d’ascolto. Tutti questi diversi modi di usufruire degli spazi museali richiedono una maggiore attenzione nei riguardi della qualità dell'ambiente interno con l'obiettivo di garantire comfort delle persone, oltre alle condizioni ottimali per la conservazione e l’esposizione delle opere d’arte. In sostanza, agli spazi confinati destinati all’esposizion…

Energia solare a scala urbana: metodi di stima della percentuale di utilizzo delle coperture degli edifici

Controllo termoigrometrico indoor negli spazi museali: analisi di un edificio in evoluzione climatica libera

Nei musei, le condizioni ambientali interne dovrebbero, nello stesso tempo, assolvere due compiti fondamentali: preservare le opere d’arte ivi esposte e garantire buone condizioni di comfort per i visitatori e per le persone che vi lavorano. Purtroppo, i requisiti ottimali per le persone e per le opere d’arte sono caratterizzati da differenti valori dei parametri fisici all’interno degli ambienti museali che, occasionalmente, possono entrare in conflitto. Nel presente articolo questi problemi vengono analizzati a partire da un’indagine di campo effettuata presso un importante museo italiano, con specifica attenzione alle condizioni microclimatiche all’interno di alcune sale espositive. Inol…

Towards resilient cities: Advancements allowed by a multi-criteria optimization tool to face the new challenges of European Union’s climate and energy goals

Abstract The United Nations as well as the European Union are strongly committed in promoting a transition towards more sustainable and resilient cities. Indeed, they are increasingly affected by different types of threats, among which the natural ones such as earthquakes, fires, and floods (shocks) and climate variability (stresses). Cities are quite often unable to cope with the adverse effects of such natural hazards. This circumstance leads to the need of introducing resilience-related criteria (besides commonly used sustainability indicators) in decision-making processes. This paper investigates at which extent the inclusion of such new indicators, within multi-criteria assessment tool…

The importance of reliable climatic data in the energy evaluation

Abstract In the last few years, more and more attention has been focused on energy issues, as it is pointed out, for example, by the Directive 2002/91/EC on the Energy Performance of Buildings and Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources. However, in order to do that, reliable tools for technicians to design systems for such topics should be provided. Nowadays, several software are available; the weak point is the availability of reliable climatic data and, above all, the ones referring to solar radiation. In this work, after a short overview of the world climatic databases, a description of three statistical methods for the elaboration of a climatic…

Optimization of a thermoelectric system for power generation realized by ‘‘hidden’’ components

Abstract Today the utilization of renewable energy sources is very important to support the traditional ones, and also in order to reach the objectives fixed by the Kyoto Protocol. In this context, also well-known technologies related to the electric energy production, formerly not suitable – due to the poor technological level of the components or due to the high costs linked to the system efficiency – may now find a suitable collocation. Among these technologies, the thermoelectric effect may be very advantageous in some particular applications of small power. A power generation system utilizing this technology has been studied by the authors. This system utilizes the thermal difference b…

Prestazioni ambientali degli edifici

Multi-Agent Systems as Effective Tools for the User-Based Thermal Comfort: an Introduction

Through the paper the characterization of a comfort model, enriching that proposed by Fanger with an adaptive approach, is carried out using a Multi Agent System (MAS). This is a well suited coordinated set of Intelligent Agents, that are software applications interacting in order to follow user in his own needs and preferences in relation to indoor comfort, adapting to the changes of context variables. As a matter of fact, MAS are systems aware of the scenery where users live, following them in their own needs and preferences and adapting to their expectations. Indeed, thermal comfort conditions in the built environment are strictly related not only to the thermal and geometric building fe…

A Case-Study of Green Roof Monitoring: The Building of Council for Agricultural Research and Economics in Bagheria, (Italy)

The energy saving in building goes on as an important challenge in the policy of Developed Countries. While the issue of energy building efficiency in heating season has deeply been investigated for a long time, the issue of energy building efficiency in cooling season is relatively recent. Moreover, considering the increase of electric consumption for air-conditioning in summer, mainly due to the growing quality of life, the research of technologies for reducing energy building consumption during this season becomes essential. The green roof represents a technology useful to reduce the energy consumption during the cooling season. In this work the authors report the results of a monitoring…

Improving the sustainability of transportation: environmental and functional benefits of right-turn by pass lanes at roundabouts

The functional performances of conventional roundabouts (single-lane and multi-lane) and innovative roundabouts (spiral, flower, C and turbo) can be improved through right-turn bypass lanes controlled by stop, yield or free-flow signs. The article presents evaluations of the emissions of air pollutants (carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particle pollution (PM10 and PM2.5)), fuel consumption and construction, management, energetic and environmental costs in roundabouts without or with bypass lanes (controlled by stop, yield or free-flow). The suggested methodology has a general character and can be applied as a multi-parametric criterion for choosing road intersections, although, in the prese…

Energia solare in area urbana. Tecniche GIS per la stima del potenziale.

Vegetation and soil – related parameters for computing solar radiation exchanges within green roofs: Are the available values adequate for an easy modeling of their thermal behavior?

Several studies analyze the thermal performance of vegetated roofs, presenting either mathematical models or experimental quantifications of heat transfer process through them, also showing the effect of vegetation and soil parameters on the thermal and energy performance of this type of roofing system. However, presently the level of availability of these parameters, has not been enough considered. This work intends to investigate this underestimated issue of the green roofs’ thermal modeling, through the consideration of the availability of parameters pertinent to the shortwave radiation exchange, which are adopted by models based on leaf area index (LAI) and on the fractional vegetation …

Public and Private Economic Feasibility of Green Areas as a Passive Energy Measure: A Case Study in the Mediterranean City of Trapani in Southern Italy

Green infrastructure in urban environments provides a wide range of ecological, social, aesthetic, and health co-benefits. Urban plant covers in particular contribute to improved outdoor environmental conditions that, in turn, influence the energy behavior of buildings and their indoor thermo-hygrometric comfort performance. Within this context, this study illustrates a methodology aimed at verifying the economic feasibility of alternative types of green areas for public and private stakeholders, which are analyzed as passive energy measures. Therefore, our methodology integrates approaches from different disciplines and consists of a microclimatic analysis of different vegetation scenarios…

Changing commuters’ mobility behaviors of university campuses: environmental and energy comparisons

Governments are required to take proper measures to promote the use of electric and hybrid vehicles and, more generally, to push people towards sweeter modalities including walking and biking. To reach such tight and challenging goals, local institutions should be deeply involved, and universities among them. The promotion of sustainable mobility practices among commuter students must be considered indeed an effective contribution to facilitating the transition towards greener cities. On purpose, students of the University of Palermo that daily commute from their residences to the campus are considered here. These commuters, in fact, mainly adopt traditional polluting transportation means. …

Control of indoor environments in heritage buildings: experimental measurements in an old Italian museum and proposal of a methodology

Abstract This paper describes some results from an experiment carried out regarding a procedure to be adopted for temperature and R.H. monitoring of indoor spaces designed for exhibiting events, such as museums and similar institutions. The monitored data employed in this study has been collected by the Department di Ricerche Energetiche ed Ambientali of the Universita degli Studi di Palermo in co-operation with the Regional Gallery ''Palazzo Abatellis'' of Palermo. The study analyses a simple method for characterising the environmental quality of museums so as to ensure the optimal conservation of works of art. This methodology is based on the procedure (where thermal and hygrometry parame…

A model for predicting the potential diffusion of solar energy systems in complex urban environments

Abstract The necessity to reduce greenhouse gases emission produced by energy building consumptions and to cut the energy bill (mainly due to the use of fossil sources) leads to the employment of renewable energy sources in new planned scenarios. In particular, more and more often municipal energy and environmental plans pay great attention to the possibilities of employment of the solar technologies at urban scale. Solar thermal and photovoltaic (PV) systems are, by far, the most suitable tools to be utilized in urban areas. Obviously, the proper adoption of such systems in buildings does call for the availability of calculation methods suitable to provide the actual level of exploitation …

Approaching the whole quality of buildings: methods for the evaluation of economic, energetic and environmental issues

In this work the energy, economy and environment ("three E") requirements for buildings are approached in a joint view, by means of an application to an example building typical of the Italian building stock. With this aim, the rate of involvement of renewable sources is here considered for linking energy and environmental characteristics. Economic and environmental features are joint by means of the evaluation of the cost of the saved CO2. Economic and energy characteristics are linked by means of the cost of the saved energy. In turn, the environmental ambit is addressed by means of the ecoprofile methodology and of the environmental labelling of buildings. This should lead toward a first…

Comparing different control strategies for indoor thermal comfort aimed at the evaluation of the energy cost of quality of building

Abstract The rapid improvement in the standard of living requires more detailed and sophisticated methods of evaluating comfort conditions. But, maintaining thermal comfort conditions in confined environments may require complex regulation procedures and the proper management of heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. In turn, the requirements for indoor thermal comfort do not necessarily coincide with those of energy saving purposes, which in the last years are becoming a crucial issue owing to the enactment of the European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD). The aim of this work is to compare different indoor control thermal comfort strategies in view of th…

Environmental assessment of a new building envelope material derived from urban agriculture wastes : the case of the tomato plants stems

Abstract Purpose Decarbonizing cities is one of today’s biggest challenges. In this regard, particular attention has been paid on improving the environmental performance of buildings. In this framework, this work consists in assessing the environmental impact of an innovative building envelope component derived from urban agriculture (UA) wastes. In fact, rooftop UA seems to be a possible solution to the rising food demand due to increasing urban demographic growth. Consequently, rooftop UA wastes need to be treated in sustainable ways. Methods This study aims to determine the carbon footprint and embodied energy of a new infill wall material, derived from UA wastes produced by a building r…

Applicazioni dell'effetto termoelettrico: un caso studio

Riveste sempre maggiore importanza l’utilizzo di fonti rinnovabili di energia da affiancare alle fonti tradizionali, anche per l’ottenimento degli obiettivi sottoscritti con l’adesione al Protocollo di Kyoto. In questo contesto anche tecnologie note per la produzione di energia elettrica ma precedentemente non convenienti - sia per il livello tecnologico dei componenti o per gli elevati costi rapportati all’efficienza ottenibile dai sistemi sviluppabili - potrebbero trovare una adeguata collocazione. Tra queste tecnologie l’effetto termoelettrico potrebbe essere vantaggioso in alcune particolari applicazioni di piccola potenza. I principali sistemi per la produzione di energia elettrica da …

Applying a new synthetic environmental indicator to urban transportation scenario

Through this work will be presented a suitably modified version of a simple model devoted to the evaluation of pollutant matters released in urban contexts by the transportation sector. The method, essentially referring to the pollutant emission factors provided within the European "COPERT III" approach, only requires the knowledge of data concerning the running car fleet on the analysed site. The methodology is here utilised for comparing environmental and energy effects of different transportation policies to be adopted in a given urban area. By imposing modal changes to the transportation demand and, consequently, by re-allocating people from cars to public means, the effects on the rele…

Energy savings in building restoration - an applicative case

Italy has a historical and architectural heritage which consists mainly of buildings built in different historical period. These buildings are today characterized by some aspects of functional distribution and comfort, which need rehabilitation. This is related to the change thinking on a more comfortable distribution of spaces, and improving the sustainability of buildings. These issues have spurred the study of methods to improve the distribution of spaces, the performance of indoor comfort and the energy efficiency in the full respect of materiality and aesthetics of the building. Therefore, the aim of this rehabilitation is improving the indoor comfort, the energy efficiency and the env…

Synthetic environmental appraisal of waste management system: an application to the Sicilian region

This paper addresses the problem of synthetically evaluating the environmental performances of urban solid waste systems. This, in fact, represents a crucial point in the management process of complex systems that local administrations are called to cope with, in order to provide decisions about policy options that involve different issues characterising the quality of life of people. Suitable methods of evaluation are clearly required for this aim. This work introduces the dashboard of sustainability and the ecological footprint approaches as aggregate indicators of the performances of solid waste management systems. The methods have been selected due to their intrinsic simplicities, provi…

Municipal Building Regulations for Energy Efficiency in Southern Italy

The building sector is still one of the most energy consuming sectors in Italy, like developed countries in Europe. At European level, the main policy driver related to the energy use in buildings is the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD, 2002/91/EC) and its recast. Through the EPBD in- troduction, requirements for certification, inspections, training or renovation are now imposed in Member States. In order to fulfill the expected changes, local regulations are a key factor aiming at sustainable territorial planning. It is thus required support the issue of local rules at municipal level in order to guide local administrators and technicians and to limit discretional power of …

Considerations about an indicator aimed at describing the energy efficiency of buildings with innovative envelope components at different climatic conditions

Green roofs are building components that have become increasingly common in urban contexts because other than the general improvement of the aesthetics of the buildings equipped with them, they have demonstrated to positively improve the building energy performance. Consequently, it would be useful for technicians to have easy and reliable indicators to achieve a synthetic quantitative judgement about the effectiveness of green roofs by an energy perspective compared to others building envelope technologies, for different climates. In sight of the definition of such an indicator, or at least of its properties, some considerations aimed at this purpose, especially concerning the use of new c…

How effective are the vegetated surfaces for the CO2 sequestration? Analyzing parameters and methods

Human activities are severe sources of greenhouse gases and, particularly, of CO 2 . This trend, according with the highly demanding criteria released by the international institutions, must be suitably cut, in order of turning the pollutant emissions within limits that will guarantee a sustainable and environmentally safe development of the human species. Apart the measures that are since long time usually implemented in the technological systems, other interventions should be properly adopted in supporting the sustainability of the anthropic activities. These actions mainly apply to the so-called bioclimatic and passive measures and, particularly, could usefully refer to the plantation of…

Comparing indoor performances of a building equipped with four different roof configurations in 65 Italian sites

Abstract—Despite the increasing concern of institutions and technical organizations toward the improvement of the building energy (and, therefore, environmental) efficiency, the main goal of technicians should be also devoted toward the levels of internal thermal comfort that buildings are able to realize. As that, the relationships between energy performances and comfort conditions provided by the enclosures are of paramount importance in guiding designers in their work. In this paper, the influence of diverse roof construction typologies on energy and indoor performance of buildings has been investigated, in different Italian sites during heating and cooling seasons. In addition, it must …

A simple methodology for comparing cost-benefit of traditional, green and cool roofs

Energy policy makers, architects and researchers, when designing new buildings or rehabilitating the existing ones, are engaged in the attempt of limiting the energy needs for climatization (NZEB buildings) and the environmental pressure exerted by buildings (EU Climate Action). The pursuit of this demanding assignment calls for innovative solutions in conceiving the building envelope and its energy systems. Recently, among the most effective tools for improving the energy and environmental performances of buildings, the technical interventions regarding the roofs are gaining a rising attention. Indeed, covers of buildings are responsible of a relevant part of their energy losses and, on th…

Leading agritourism facilities along Nearly Zero Energy paths: proposal of an easy-to-use evaluation method

The tourist sector, despite the present severe constraints imposed by the sanitary emergence, can be considered as an important component of almost all countries’ economies. In Italy agriturism, in particular, has been experiences a continuously rising trend in recent years. Clearly, such great interest towards these businesses also calls for a deep attention by an energy point of view, in sight of an energy efficiency improvement, hence a lowering of the pressure that such facilities exert to the natural environment. On the other hand, the European Union has been engaged, for a long time, in awarding the tourist accommodations environmental excellence brands, like the EU Ecolabel. Unfortun…

Urban transportation: Predicting acoustic and atmospheric pollution by means on neural networks.

The prediction of the atmospheric pollution produced by transportation in urban areas is one of the main issues in which researchers are engaged worldwide since a long time. A lot of models have been introduced, ranging from simplified ones (that utilize literature data and phenomenological approaches), to very sophisticated methods (referring to complex mathematical techniques for solving the fluid dynamics algorithms). As matter of facts, passengers and freight vehicles are also responsible of acoustic pollution, that is particularly impacting in urban contexts. What it is new in this work is the consideration that both pollution phenomena occur in the same time and exert a double pressur…

Green roofs for smart cities: experimental determination of the “fractional vegetation coverage” of six vegetated species

Towards a de-carbonization of European countries, green roofs are becoming popular, due not only to aesthetic reasons but also to energy and environmental issues. Indeed, especially in summer periods, the building cooling demand might be sensibly cut thanks to such passive components often chosen for planning smart cities. To properly model the energy performances of buildings equipped with these components, a particular attention must be paid to radiative exchanges occurring among soil surface, leaves and outdoor surroundings. These thermal exchanges depend on parameters, like the “fractional vegetation coverage” whose literature data do not seem particularly suitable for the simulation ne…

Stato di recepimento della Direttiva 2002/91/CE sulle prestazioni energetiche degli edifici

The Italian Prisons: An Emblematic Case of Chance of Improvement of a Public Service

The history of prisons is full of pains and contradictions in every historic period. Detention should be seen as a moment of transformation of an offender in a rehabilitated subject. To do this, we need adequate structures, which are able to support individuals by offering them the opportunity, "which in civil life did not have or have not been able to exploit", therefore, prisons where the prisoners do not spend their time lounging due to the absence of any activity, not a structure without services such as the library, recreation centre, etc. as well as not a dilapidated structure and hygienically deficient. A reintegration process has to take into account the place of the reintegration. …

Two operative risk indicators as tools for negotiating contracts between curators of Museums and HVAC technical services providers

Abstract The purpose of Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) systems in museums is to properly control important microclimate parameters; such systems, in fact, apart from ensuring the visitors’ wellbeing, are requested to guarantee suitable indoor conditions for the proper conservation of the important cultural goods hosted by museums. Hence, in case of disservice, or interruption due to maintenance interventions, it is important to quantify the economic damage induced to exhibited and/or stored works of art (or even to the building museum itself). Accordingly, it is essential to guarantee the shortest possible period of disservice during which probable damages for the works of…

Composite Building Materials: Thermal and Mechanical Performances of Samples Realized with Hay and Natural Resins

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552 Recent years have seen an increasing public interest in issues related to energy saving and environmental pollution reduction in the building sector. As a result, many directives have been issued, the most important being the Directive 2010/31/EU (EPBD Recast) on the energy performance of buildings, which requires that "Member States shall ensure that by 31 December 2020 all new buildings are nearly zero-energy buildings". This goal can be obtained not only by reducing energy demand for heating and cooling, but also, for example, by improving building envelope performances. In this work, a first analysis of the thermal and structural behavi…

Utilizing the tourist Ecolabel-award scheme for singling out useful criteria for assessing a new environmental brand for residential buildings.

The Eco-label scheme is becoming ever more important in the environmental certification of products and services, especially in light of the recent ambitious aim of containing greenhouse emissions and improving the efficiency of utilizing energy sources and resources. A recently-introduced hypothesis concerns the European eco-label scheme relating to buildings, due in part to the awareness that the construction industry is of primary importance to the whole economic and social life of states. This scheme should adopt an integrated approach to environmental problems and include construction, day-to-day management and the possible disposal of building materials, throughout the life cycle of t…

A CASE STUDY OF THE INDOOR AIR QUALITY IN SCHOOLS BELONGING TO AN AREA OF THE SICILIAN ISLAND INTERESTED BY THE PRESENCE OF PETROCHEMICAL REFINERIES

The indoor environmental quality is a topic particularly relevant for schools; this category of confined environments is, indeed, occupied by subjects (i.e. children), which are thought to be more vulnerable than adults to the negative health effects of poor indoor air quality, and whose learning process has long been recognized to be influenced by the quality of the indoor environment. This paper presents results of a study concerning the inside air quality of schools in four small towns sited in the southern part of Sicily, interested by the presence of a petrochemical refinery in the surrounding territory. The performed analysis made it possible to highlight the main criticalities regard…

The use of sea waves for generation of electrical energy and Hydrogen

Recently linear synchronous generator for the exploitation of sea wave energy has been proposed. That solution does not require reactive power to magnetize but needs permanent magnets to assure the excitation. The electrical energy generated by such a device must be converted and conditioned in order to match the instantaneous utility requirements and a power link from the sea to an interconnection is needed. In this paper in order to overcome that difficulty, the authors propose the use of the electrical energy generated to generate “in situ” hydrogen. As a result the output of the generation would be hydrogen that can be stored and used when needed The proposed electrical generator is a P…

Forecasting green roofs’ potential in improving building thermal performance and mitigating urban heat island in the Mediterranean area: An artificial intelligence-based approach

Green roofs are widely used in hot or cold climates mainly because they are capable to improve the energy efficiency of buildings and, when implemented at a large scale, reducing air pollution and the urban heat island effect (UHI) in urban contexts. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) black-box algorithms are a valid alternative to studying complex systems. However, the literature highlights - quite surprisingly – none of the available research refers to coupling ANNs and green roofs in the Mediterranean area, where green roofs are instead considered one of the most suitable technologies to reduce the high cooling demand. Therefore, the objective of this research work is to create and validate…

Assessing the effectiveness of green roofs in enhancing the energy and indoor comfort resilience of urban buildings to climate change: Methodology proposal and application

Abstract The effects of climate change on the built environment represents an important research challenge. Today, green roofs (GRs) represent a viable solution for enhancing energy and urban resilience in the face of climate change, as they can have a positive impact on the building's indoor thermal comfort and energy demand, as well as inducing various environmental benefits (easing urban heat island effects, improving the management of runoff water, reducing air pollution, etc.). Thus, it is important to be able to assess their effectiveness, both today and under future climate conditions, in order to evaluate whether they can also provide a valid long-term solution. In this paper, a sim…

Celle a combustibile per applicazioni stazionarie cogenerative (5.2.5.11) - Celle a Combustibile (wp1)

La normativa obbligatoria e le certificazioni volontarie nel settore agroalimentare e proposta di un manuale integrato qualità ed ambiente relativo al processo di produzione dell’olio d’oliva

Strategic Environmental Analysis (SEA) of the building Sector: an Annotated List of Indicators and a Simple Methodology

With respect to the SEA of the town planning scheme of the Sicilian region, we will analyse through the paper the most commonly adopted indicators of sustainability and we will select the most promising of them for the purpose. Moreover, a simplified approach will be introduced for the assessment of the SEA by utilising both simple and aggregate indicators: simple indicators (selected among those proposed in the literature) will lead to the “technical” assessment of the SEA, while aggregate indicators (built up by properly grouping the simple ones) will lead to the “political” assessment of the Sicilian urbanistic sector. Simple indicators will refer to official data, essentially concerning…

The spatial evaluation of the radiative human body heat exchanges: An effective contribution for limiting energy consumption and achieving better indoor conditions in buildings

Abstract Radiative heat exchanges inside buildings remarkably affect the thermal balance of the human body in confined spaces and the related thermal comfort sensations of people. The mean radiant temperature is an important component of this balance. Unfortunately, it is usually computed by means of too simplified relationships, which significantly influence the comfort evaluations. Such simplified approaches are also accountable for a less effective design of HVAC systems which, in turn, could result in high energy consumption in the climatization of buildings. However, an accurate evaluation of the mean radiant temperature, especially when high intensity sources are present in a given in…

The calculation of the mean radiant temperature of a subject exposed to the solar radiation – A generalised algorithm

Abstract The thermal sensation experienced by a subject in a confined environment is significantly affected by the radiative heat exchange between the human body and the surrounding surfaces: it contributes as far as 30% of the whole thermal exchanges of the subject. Besides, the presence of high-intensity radiation sources like, for example, the sun, may appreciably modify the radiant field to which people are exposed. As a consequence, this could alter notably the comfort conditions. In order of properly taking into account this issue, a simple analytical method is introduced in this work, that allows the easy evaluation of the thermal radiant field induced by the presence of the solar ra…

La valutazione ambientale dei materiali edili

Angle Factors and Projected Area Factors for Comfort Analysis of Subjects in Complex Confined Enclosures: Analytical Relations and Experimental Results

This paper addresses an important problem in the evaluation of the thermal comfort of people living or working in the sort of confined spaces typical of current architecture. In the details, a new algorithm is proposed for the evaluation of the angle factors of people within rooms characterized by complex shapes, where the envelope components are not always mutually orthogonal. The algorithm is based on field data obtained by means of an experimental photographic apparatus which allows measurements of projected area factors of seated or standing people in such complex confined environments.

Indoor air quality in schools of a highly polluted south Mediterranean area

This study aimed at surveying lower secondary schools in southern Italy, in a highly polluted area. A community close to an industrial area and three villages in rural areas was investigated. Indoor temperature, relative humidity (RH), gaseous pollutants (CO 2 and NO 2 ), selected biological pollutants in indoor dust, and the indoor/outdoor mass concentration and elemental composition of PM 2.5 were ascertained. Temperature and RH were within, or close to, the comfort range, while CO 2 frequently exceeded the threshold of 1000 ppm, indicating inadequate air exchange rate. In all the classrooms, median NO 2 levels were above the WHO threshold value. Dermatophagoides p. allergen concentration…

L'Anno-Tipo per la simulazione energetica degli edifici - Costruzione dell'Anno-Tipo di Palermo

Thermo-hygrometry and IAQ Related Measurements of the Indoor Physical Conditions of Exhibition Halls for Complying International Rules and Standards

Off-line methods for detecting the indoor physical parameters of museums are important tools in order of continuously monitoring the conditions at which works of art are exposed. These conditions, in fact, are mandatory established by several rules and technical standards aimed at preserving the specific artifacts. Moreover, indoor microclimate parameters must also take into account the comfort conditions for visiting people. Both the above-cited requirements suggest to perform the indoor monitoring with equipment visually low impacting. In this paper, some examples of visually low impacting off-line monitoring methods, applied to three artifacts displayed in the “Museo Regionale” of Palerm…

Green Roofs as Effective Tools for Improving the Indoor Comfort Levels of Buildings—An Application to a Case Study in Sicily

In the line of pursuing better energy efficiency in human activities that would result in a more sustainable utilization of resources, the building sector plays a relevant role, being responsible for almost 40% of both energy consumption and the release of pollutant substances in the atmosphere. For this purpose, techniques aimed at improving the energy performances of buildings&rsquo

Generation of a Test Reference Year (TRY): an application to the town of Palermo

The improvement of the energy efficiency of buildings calls for the availability of tools for evaluating and simulating the thermal behaviour of buildings, needing as input climatic databases. These databases contain a very large amount of data, resulting in long computational time analysis. Therefore, simple aggregation methods are used, among which the test reference year (TRY). In this paper, a comparison between two statistical methodologies for compiling a TRY, the Belgian and the Sandia methods, is presented. Then, the two methods have been utilized for compiling the TRY for the town of Palermo, Italy, and compared both statistically and by means of two simple applications, obtaining …

Relationship between domestic smoking and metals and rare earth elements concentration in indoor PM2.5

Cigarette smoke is the main source of indoor chemical and toxic elements. Cadmium (Cd), Thallium (Tl), Lead (Pb) and Antimony (Sb) are important contributors to smoke-related health risks. Data on the association between Rare Earth Elements (REE) Cerium (Ce) and Lanthanum (La) and domestic smoking are scanty. To evaluate the relationship between cigarette smoke, indoor levels of PM2.5 and heavy metals, 73 children were investigated by parental questionnaire and skin prick tests. The houses of residence of 41 "cases" and 32 "controls" (children with and without respiratory symptoms, respectively) were evaluated by 48-hours PM2.5 indoor/outdoor monitoring. PM2.5 mass concentration was determi…

A simple methodology for comparing cost-benefit of traditional, green and cool roofs

Energy policy makers, architects and researchers, when designing new buildings or rehabilitating the existing ones, are engaged in the attempt of limiting the energy needs for climatization (NZEB buildings) and the environmental pressure exerted by buildings (EU Climate Action). The pursuit of this demanding assignment calls for innovative solutions in conceiving the building envelope and its energy systems. Recently, among the most effective tools for improving the energy and environmental performances of buildings, the technical interventions regarding the roofs are gaining a rising attention. Indeed, covers of buildings are responsible of a relevant part of their energy losses and, on th…

Integrazione di luce naturale e artificiale e sua influenza sul fabbisogno energetico degli edifici

Suitability of some existing damage indexes for assessing agreements in maintenance and management of museum climatization systems

Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning systems in museums are called to properly control important microclimate parameters, not only for visitors’ wellbeing, but mostly for the preservation of works of art. Accordingly, in case of interruptions to Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning systems, due to maintenance interventions or drawbacks, it is essential to guarantee the acceptable break from service to which possible damages for the works of art are related. In this regard, the aim of this work is to introduce a simple indicator to support curators in regulating the stipulation of contracts with external companies, a more effective management and maintenance of the Heating, V…

A Win-Win Scheme for Improving the Environmental Sustainability of University Commuters’ Mobility and Getting Environmental Credits

European Union Member States are called upon to meet internationally proposed environmental goals. This study is based, in particular, on the recommendation of the European Union (EU), which encourages Member States to pursue effective policies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions, including through appropriate changes in the behavioral habits of citizens. In this respect, among the main sectors involved, transport and mobility should certainly be mentioned. National institutions should be adequately involved in order to achieve the objectives set; in this regard, universities must certainly be considered for their educational value. These latter, for instance, could commit to improvin…

Role of green coverings in mitigating heat island effects: an analysis of physical models

Worldwide, governments are introducing several rules and standards in the aim of limiting the quantity of primary energy for air conditioning of buildings and supporting the use of renewable source of energy for generating thermal and electric energy to be utilized in buildings such as the European Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings [1]. Along with these interventions, another important action takes currently place in the building sector, that is the introduction of passive structural components of the envelope, able to reduce the requirements of energy for air conditioning purposes. Among these building components, the so-called green roofs are becoming more and more interest…

Towards Nearly Zero Energy and Environmentally Sustainable Agritourisms: The Effectiveness of the Application of the European Ecolabel Brand

Tourism represents an important economic driver in Italy, being responsible for approximately 13.2% of the total GDP (a value higher than the reference European average) and for nearly 10% of the regional GDP. Among the touristic sectors, the agritourist ones show a persistent growth, experiencing in 2019 a 6.7 point percentage improvement compared to the 2017 figures. Given this situation, the transition towards a low-carbon path, affecting the building sector for some time, should also involve agritourist buildings, through the release of EU directives, member state laws, and technical rules. On the other hand, agritourism sites could be awarded the Community EU Ecolabel. Unfortunately, a…

The importance of reliable climatic data in the urban energy policy

In the last years, more and more attention has been focused on energy issues, in particular at urban level, as it is pointed out by the Directive 2002/91/EC on the Energy Performance of Buildings. In fact, the building sector encompasses nearly 30% of the energy whole consumptions. To try to limit such consumptions, both central and local governments should plan effective policies, such as promoting the use of renewable sources and of more energy efficient buildings (e.g. by means of green coverings). But in order to do that, local administrations should provide reliable tools for engineers and technicians to plan such systems. Nowadays, several software are available; the weak point is the…

L’Anno-Tipo di Radiazione Solare per la città di Palermo

Energy load Behaviours of Sicilian Hotel: methods for reducing the annual consumptions of bungalow hotels in the Mediterranean area

Starting from the analysis of the energy consumption of some typical Sicilian hotels, it has been possible to assess their annual energy load behaviours, by source type. In addition, it has been also developed a simple model of the annual consumption, by kind of energy load. This approach allowed the comparison of true load-type energy consumption with typical load-type benchmark values (e.g. lighting consumption). In turn, this allows the singling out of feasible methods for the reductions of the energy consumption; the found solutions take into account three fundamental issues: energy, economy and environment. Analysed buildings are represented by typical hotels of the Mediterranean area;…

Condizioni termoigrometriche per la conservazione di beni artistici in ambienti indoor: il museo archeologico Baglio Anselmi di Marsala

I beni artistici, anche se collocati in ambienti chiusi, sono ugualmente esposti ad un processo di degrado che non è possibile evitare ma sul quale si può intervenire per rallentarne il decorso. I materiali che costituiscono un bene variano nel tempo a causa di trasformazioni fisiche, chimiche, biologiche e meccaniche: entro certi limiti di modificazione del bene si parla di invecchiamento, ma se tali limiti vengono superati e viene compromessa la possibilità di fruizione del bene stesso si parla di vero e proprio degrado. Le condizioni ambientali all’interno dei musei dovrebbero, pertanto, essere tali da preservare le opere d’arte dal degrado e da ridurre la frequenza degli interventi di r…

Optimization of a thermoelectric system for power generation

Nowadays the utilization of renewable energy sources is very important to support the traditional ones, and besides in order to achieve the objectives fixed by the Kyoto Protocol. In this context also well known technologies related to the electric energy production, formerly not suitable - due to the technological level of the components or due to the high costs linked to the system efficiency -, may found a suitable collocation. Among these technologies, the thermoelectric effect may be very advantageous in some particular applications of small power. A power generation system utilizing this technology was studied by the Authors. This system utilizes the thermal difference between a lower…

The European Standards for Energy Efficiency in Buildings: an analysis of the Evolution with Reference to a Case Study

The improvement of the energy efficiency of building stocks represents an important contribution for the reduction of the energy consumption in the European Union (EU), along with the decrease of greenhouse gases emissions. In this aim both the public administrations and the technical experts need reliable calculation methodology to assess buildings’ energy performance. In this framework, despite the recent publication of the Standard EN ISO 52016, that deeply modifies the approach to the energy building simulation by introducing a new hourly dynamic calculation model, the current normative framework (EN ISO 13790) will maintain its validity until the incorporation of the new Standard in th…

Accordo di Programma MSE-CNR. Gruppo tematico: Celle a Combustibile (wp1). Responsabile scientifico del Progetto Vincenzo Antonucci. Accordo di Collaborazione tra CNR Dipartimento Energia e Trasporti (DET) e Dipartimento dell’Energia (DE) dell’Università di Palermo. Responsabile Scientifico: Celidonio Dispenza sino al 31.10.2010, Vincenzo La Rocca dall’1.11.2010. Attività di ricerca nell’ambito del Progetto: “Celle a combustibile per applicazioni stazionarie cogenerative: Analisi comparative delle tecnologie in studio con sistemi energetici concorrenti”. ATTIVITA’ ANNO 2010-2011. Palermo. Dipartimento dell’Energia

Off-line methods for determining air quality in museums

This paper will examine three methodologies deployed in off-line research relating to air quality in museums. These methodologies made use of sensors based on the different chemical-physicalproperties of various materials (corrosiveness, hardness and absorption). Various field applications were applied to case studies, which were performed in two museums in Palermo, Italy: the Regional Gallery of Palazzo Abatellis and the Diocesan Museum. This review of methodologies and sensors examines which protocol should be put into practice in museums in monitoring the air quality of display spaces and the conservation of cultural artefacts.

Un metodo di valutazione delle prestazioni ambientali dei sistemi integrati di gestione dei rifiuti: un’applicazione agli ATO della Regione Sicilia

Foster Carbon-Neutrality in the Built Environment: A Blockchain-Based Approach for the Energy Interaction Among Buildings

Decarbonizing urban environments and reducing their energy consumption is one of modern society biggest commitments. In this regard, both the scientific community and international governments have been giving special consideration on improving the energy-environmental performance of mostly single buildings; recently the focus has been shifting towards a broader Positive Energy District (PED)/ Energy Community (EC) vision, from small clustered group of buildings to neighborhoods up until urban settlements. In this respect, integrating the use of renewable energy resources (RES) and actively involving building users can have a significant environmental impact on local areas. Within this fram…

Accordo di Programma MSE-CNR - Gruppo tematico: Celle a Combustibile (wp1) Responsabile scientifico del Progetto Vincenzo Antonucci - Accordo di Collaborazione tra CNR Dipartimento Energia e Trasporti (DET) e Dipartimento Ricerche Energetiche e Ambientali (DREAM) dell’ Università di Palermo - Responsabile Scientifico DREAM: Celidonio Dispenza - Attività di ricerca nell’ambito del Progetto: “Celle a combustibile per applicazioni stazionarie cogenerative” - ATTIVITA’ ANNO 2009

Le prestazioni energetiche ed ambientali degli edifici: osservazioni e proposte metodologiche

Tunnel fire active protection: improving ventilation system

Abstract The main aim of this work is to evaluate how the use of an active protection method, consisting in an improved forced longitudinal ventilation system, can determine a positive impact on heat extraction and people evacuation time in a tunnel fire scenario, by considering a case study which simulations are based on a real gallery.

Caso Studio: Definizione Anno-Tipo per la Città di Palermo

On the ranking criteria for energy retrofitting building stocks: Which building goes first? The role of the building size in the establishment of priority lists

Abstract The energy retrofit of the existing building stocks is considered a preeminent strategy to lowering the energy consumption of the building sector. Other than the definition of the most successful combination of energy saving measures, the definition of a suitable ranking of all the buildings of the stock, on which implementing established energy retrofit measures, is quite a relevant issue. The most eligible criterion for prioritizing the buildings seems their energy consumption because it combines the building energy performance and their size. To investigate the role played by the building dimension in determining the order of priority of all the buildings of a given stock, this …

Chemical fingerprint of outdoor PM2.5 in Malta

Intro: RESPIRA (EU Funded - Italia-Malta 07-13) indicated that living in Malta is a risk factor for asthma. Aim: To determine the chemical profile of PM2.5 in Malta, and compare with reference values. Methods: Using FAI pumps at 10l/min/48hr, samples were collected on Teflon and Quartz filters from 6 schools and 46 homes in Malta. Total ICP-MS measurement (Residual+extracted), X ray Fluorescence, and thermo-optical methods(TO) were used for analysis by CNR in Rome. Aeroqual IQM60 counters were used for total PM2.5 mass. All data in ng/m3, Mean, (1st to 3rd quartile) of all 48 hour measurements.

Measurements of projected areas of seated and standing people of southern Italy based on a statistical analysis

One of the most important components affecting the human thermal balance is represented by its radiative exchange with the surrounding surfaces. The projected area of the human body is an important parameter of these thermal exchanges. Unfortunately, although the anthropometric measures of people are characterized by significant differences among various populations, the experimental data currently available in the literature refers to a small group of people. Moreover, measurements are generally performed regardless of the statistical significance of the involved subjects with respect to the population to which they belong. In this study, a statistical study is introduced that is based on …

New sustainable technologies for buildings: the use of green roofs

Computing methods for resilience: evaluating new building components in the frame of SECAPs

Resilience represents a new important feature that the anthropic systems, and cities among them, are called to cope with. In fact, the increasing negative stresses to which urban contexts are exposed, and mainly the climatic pressures, call for the capability of adapting to these modifications and, possibly, to restore the ex-ante situations. The role of the buildings and their envelope components is of crucial importance to this aim. This paper analyses the features of resilience of the roofs of buildings by means of proper quantitative indexes. On purpose, the performances of green and cool roofs are compared. The possibility of adopting nonstructural solutions, like the windows shading d…

Comparison of methodologies for Test Reference Year (TRY) generation for Mediterranean sites

The improvement of the energy efficiency of buildings calls for the availability of tools for evaluating and simulating the thermal behaviour of buildings. These simulation tools generally need a complete input data set and, in particular, information referring to the climatic conditions of the site where buildings are built-up. Among climatic issues, particularly important for the thermal energy balance is the solar radiation. However, this huge mass of data is not very useful in this form, so simple aggregation methods have been developed in order to run these simulation computer programs: the test reference year (TRY) is one of the most used methods. In this paper the comparison of two m…

Regional policies for sustainability in the Mediterranean countries: the role of a proper HVAC system maintenance in museums

Italy, like several Mediterranean countries, holds a very large number of cultural artifacts that are often exhibited and saved inside museums. Museums are usually part of historical buildings that, not rarely, originally had a different intended use and that have been currently transformed in place for conservation and for exhibition of works of art. The use of historical buildings as museums leads to limitations in the management and distribution of exhibition space, in design and managing HVAC systems and in the achievement of targets relating to the continuous monitoring of the microclimate for people comfort and for preservation of works of art. Moreover, the costs of the operation and…

Comparazione delle formule per il calcolo dell'area del corpo umano nudo ai fini della valutazione del benessere termoigrometrico

Lo scambio termico tra uomo ed ambiente dipende da molteplici fattori, sia oggettivi (ambiente circostante) sia soggettivi; in particolar modo si è voluto valutare come l’area del corpo umano nudo interviene nel calcolo del contributo dovuto allo scambio termico radiativo sulla valutazione del comfort termoigrometrico indoor. Generalmente, in questo ambito, per calcolare il valore dell’area della superficie del corpo umano nudo si utilizza la nota formula di Du Bois, che è funzione dei soli parametri di peso ed altezza del soggetto. In questo lavoro si vuole confrontare la formula di Du Bois con formule relativamente più recenti, presenti in letteratura, anch’esse funzioni del peso e dell’a…