Search results for "Building"
showing 10 items of 1985 documents
Is the transfer function method reliable in a European building context? A theoretical analysis and a case study in the South of Italy
2005
Abstract The available tools for dynamic simulation of the buildings thermal behaviour are manifold, and the most modern ones, known as TRNSYS, are founded upon the use of the Z-transform (ZT) set also called transfer function method (TFM). The transfer function method (TFM), recommended by American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), is one of the most modern tools available to solve heat transfer problems in building envelopes and environments. TFM utilises Z-transforms to solve the equation system that describes the heat transfer in a multi-layered wall. Due to an analogy with an electric circuit, it is possible to write the equation system in a mat…
Review of the energy and economic parameters involved in the effectiveness of grid-connected PV systems installed in multi-storey buildings
2014
Abstract The assessment of PV energy in an urban context is extremely complex because many factors have to be considered. Moreover, when the purpose is calculating the realistic amount of the electricity demand of a city that can be covered by the photovoltaic generation, it is necessary to estimate the number of photovoltaic systems whose installation is economically advantageous. Such a topic requires an economic analysis, which is affected by the number of energy and economic parameters involved and the values assigned to them to perform calculations. Some parameters are perfectly known and unvarying, like the paid incentives. Adversely, some parameters, like the efficiency degradation o…
The importance of reliable climatic data in the energy evaluation
2012
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…
Smart Cities and Municipal Building Regulation for Energy Efficiency
2015
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…
Comparing different control strategies for indoor thermal comfort aimed at the evaluation of the energy cost of quality of building
2010
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…
Identifying First Responders Information Needs
2016
At the onset of an indoor fire emergency, the availability of the information becomes critical due to the chaotic situation at the emergency site. Moreover, if information is lacking, not shared, or responders are too overloaded to acknowledge it, lives can be lost and property can be harmed. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to identify information items that are needed for first responders during search and rescue operations. The authors use an educational building fire emergency as a case and show how first responders can be supported by getting access to information that are stored in different information systems. The research methodology used was a combination of literature review,…
Serious games as a virtual training ground for relocation to a new healthcare facility
2016
Purpose This paper aims to enquire into how building information modelling (BIM) and gaming can be integrated to support professionals in their learning about the spatial layout of a new building. This knowledge is important to prepare building operation and facilities management (FM). Design/methodology/approach Ingrained in task–technology fit theory, this paper reports from a case study of a serious game staged in the graphical environment of a building information model. A series of interviews with the client, subject-matter experts and software developers involved in developing the game were conducted. The industrial setting for the study is a major hospital construction project in No…
Hybrid Procedure for Automated Detection of Cracking with 3D Pavement Data
2016
Pavement cracks are considered a major indicator of pavement performance. Because traditional manual crack surveys are dangerous, time consuming, and expensive, technologies have been developed to collect high-speed pavement images, and numerous algorithms have been proposed to detect cracks on pavement surface. The latest PaveVision3D Ultra system (3D Ultra) has been implemented to achieve 30-kHz three-dimensional (3D) scanning rate for 1-mm resolution pavement surface data at highway speed up to 100 km/h (60 mi/h). This paper presents the application of a hybrid procedure for automated crack detection on 3D pavement data collected using 3D Ultra. The procedure combines three different me…
Low stiffness variation in structural systems: identification and localization
2008
When a very low damage occurs, the undamaged structural response totally overlaps the damaged one either in time domain or in frequency domain; on the other hand, by considering some characteristics of the analytical signal, such as the phase, it has been possible to develop a damage identification procedure that allows the identification and localization of damage even if the structure experiences multiple damages at the same time. This procedure is also robust with respect to the presence of measuring noise. In order to assess the validity of the proposed damage identification procedure, numerical applications on single degree of freedom and 2 DOF and 4 DOF are presented using data record…
Interaction between Longitudinal Shear and Transverse Bending in Prestressed Concrete Box Girders
2017
In box girder bridges, the quantity and distribution of reinforcement to be put in concrete elements of sections can be evaluated only by considering the deformation of the cross section in addition to the longitudinal analysis of the static scheme, establishing the entire state of stress of box sections. This leads to a need to evaluate the interaction between internal forces obtained by the global analysis and the ones obtained by the local analysis of the cross sections. The frame effect implies the elastic deformation of slabs and webs, whereas eccentrically applied loads lead to cross-section distortion with the loss of the box shape. Hence, the reinforcement is strongly influenced by …