Search results for "Architectural engineering"
showing 10 items of 158 documents
Computing methods for resilience: evaluating new building components in the frame of SECAPs
2019
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…
A Survey on Daylighting Education in Italian Universities : Knowledge of Standards, Metrics and Simulation Tools
2021
Daylighting is a strategic topic to achieve sustainable buildings, so it is more and more imperative that it is implemented in architecture curricula to prepare a new generation of daylighting-oriented practitioners. In this frame, the DAYKE project (Daylight Knowledge in Europe) was set up to explore the level of knowledge about daylighting among European professionals and students. DAYKE-Europe was replicated as DAYKE-Italy to study the knowledge of daylight standards, metrics and software among Italian architecture students, and to compare it to that observed within DAYKE-Europe. A sample of 542 questionnaires were collected in five universities. Primary outcomes were: (i) a general low …
Special Issue “Smart Urban Lighting Systems”
2020
The design and operation of multifunctional infrastructures for public lighting as well as their impact on the urban environment and citizens’ life is today of great interest. The cost of energy for public lighting is often an issue for the budget of municipalities. Furthermore, researchers’ and designers’ attention is increasingly focused on aspects of public lighting not directly valuable through economic factors. Starting from the “quality” of the light environment, looking at citizens’ visual comfort, the light has to be considered as an instrument to improve the urban context and objects therein (including buildings). Indeed, urban degradation (lack of infrastructures, maintenance, ser…
Impact of building automation control systems and technical building management systems on the energy performance class of residential buildings: An …
2014
Abstract The paper focuses on the evaluation of the impact on residential buildings of building automation control (BAC) and technical building management (TBM) systems. This work shows how the control, monitoring and automation functions considered by the European Standard EN 15232 can considerably influence the energy performance of a single-family test house and, consequently, its energy performance class. The study puts into evidence that the benefit that can be drawn from the installation of BAC and TBM systems depends on the type of technical appliances in the household and on the starting energy performance class. Finally, the economic impact due to the introduction of BACS or TBM fu…
Challenges in Energy Systems for the Smart-Cities of the Future
2012
In the last years the European Union has actively promoted the renewable energies and the Combined Heat and Power (CHP) also for residential and tertiary buildings. The exploitation of renewable sources and cogeneration seems hampered by the regulatory wall that prohibit for residential, tertiary and commercial buildings the constitution of users clusters. In fact, the unification up to a threshold value of some tens of kVA, at least, can facilitate the installation of renewable energy power plants as solar PV modules or CHP systems (cogeneration) or CCHP systems (tri-generation), overcoming technical and economical barriers and combining several load profiles. The actual distribution syste…
Economic impact of BACS and TBM systems on residential buildings
2013
The paper presents the results of a study on the economic impact of building automation control systems and technical building management systems on residential buildings. The different functions considered by European Standard EN 15232 and having impact on the energy performance of buildings are applied to a test house, varying its energy efficiency class. The economic impact due to the introduction of each BACS or TBM function is evaluated using the BAC factors method, considering the real costs for the purchase and the installation of the components that implement the specific functions and the yearly energy costs of the building before and after their installation.
Manufacturing Cellulosic Fibres for Making Paper: A Historical Perspective
2018
The manufacture of pulp and paper is an important branch of industry worldwide and is based on complex and multidisciplinary technology. The production and modification of cellulosic fibre, which created the foundation for this industrial sector, has had a rich and colourful history. It has gone through many eras and its development has been closely integrated with the growth of our fundamental knowledge of chemistry and other natural sciences. During the last two decades, modern pulp and paper technologies have undergone some significant developments, especially ones involving the creation of a wide range of new options for different feedstock materials. Nevertheless, the fundamental conce…
Covering the Gap for an Effective Energy and Environmental Design of Green Roofs: Contributions from Experimental and Modelling Researches
2021
AbstractGreen roofs are components of the building envelope that have become increasingly popular in urban contexts because other than providing numerous environmental benefits they are also capable of reducing building energy consumption, especially in summer. However, despite all these advantages, green roofs are still affected by some limitations. Specifically, there are some gaps affecting the energy modelling consisting in the absence of a proper database, information (growth stage, leaf area index, and coverage ratio) relative to the different green roof plant species, which technicians could use in case of lack of actual field data to perform energy analysis of buildings equipped wit…
Definition and Assessment of a BAC Factor for Estimating Electrical Consumption of Outdoor Lighting
2018
The BAC factors method was introduced by the international Standard EN 15232 for a rough evaluation of energy savings in buildings obtained thanks to automation. The above standard considers the building's services such as heating, cooling, ventilation and lighting and takes into account automation on the basis of assumed usage profile for the related technical installations. However, the standard does not refer specifically to the automation of outdoor lighting systems such as those serving gardens, entrance walkways and passages around the building and supplied by it. In this paper, the authors propose a method for evaluation an outdoor BAC factor for lighting system considering various s…
Smart city and public lighting
2015
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…