Search results for "Civil engineering"
showing 10 items of 1216 documents
An integrated simulation method for building energy performance assessment in urban environments
2012
a b s t r a c t The microclimate around a building, establishing through the interaction with other buildings or the natural environment, is a significant factor in the building energy consumption. This paper presents a method for the quantitative analysis of building energy performance under any given urban contexts by linking the microclimate model ENVI-met to the building energy simulation (BES) program EnergyPlus. The full microclimatic factors such as solar radiation, long wave radiation, air temperature, air humidity, and wind speed have been considered in the proposed scheme. A case study has been conducted to analyze the effects of different microclimatic factors on the energy balan…
Overview and future challenges of nearly zero energy buildings (nZEB) design in Southern Europe
2017
In times of great transition of the European construction sector to energy efficient and nearly zero energy buildings (nZEB), a market observation containing qualitative and quantitative indications should help to fill out some of the current gaps concerning the EU 2020 carbon targets. Next to the economic challenges, there are equally important factors that hinder renovating the existing residential building stock and adding newly constructed high performance buildings. Under these circumstances this paper summarises the findings of a cross-comparative study of the societal and technical barriers of nZEB implementation in 7 Southern European countries. The study analyses the present situat…
DE.DU.ENER.T. project: A prototype of a sustainable energy microsystem
2016
The paper presents a prototype of a microsystem for the integration and the optimal management of renewable energy sources in order to attain a reduction of the total energy consumption of a not residential building. The system composed by the building and the prototype is an energy sustainable microsystem and is located in Italy in the city of Valderice. The microsystem has been conceived in the ENPI (European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument) cross-border cooperation Italy - Tunisia 2007-2013 DE.DU.ENER.T. (Le DEveloppement DUrable dans la production ENERgetique dans le Territoire) research project framework. In the paper the purposes of the DE.DU.ENER.T. project are presented and …
Risks of mould growth in different building structures
2014
In the current paper the impact of real Latvian climate conditions on a variety of building constructions is inspected. The influence of the humidity on buildings’ sustainability in three different building units has been appraised. Condensate risks in a multi-layer wall are analyzed by transient outdoor climatic conditions. Risks of mould growth are discussed in detail taking into account the properties of building materials, dependence of humidity on temperature and season. The effect of vapour barrier is analyzed from several aspects. Theoretical analysis has been done based on real test stands built in Riga. Some experimental results are obtained.
Energy and environmental benefits in public buildings as a result of retrofit actions
2011
Abstract The paper presents the results of an energy and environmental assessment of a set of retrofit actions implemented in the framework of the EU Project “BRITA in PuBs” (Bringing Retrofit Innovation to Application in Public Buildings – no: TREN/04/FP6EN/S07.31038/503135). Outcomes arise from a life cycle approach focused on the following issues: (i) construction materials and components used during retrofits; (ii) main components of conventional and renewable energy systems; (iii) impacts related to the building construction, for the different elements and the whole building. The results are presented according to the data format of the Environmental Product Declaration. Synthetic indi…
Energy and Economic Analysis of Different Buildings Constructed with Environmentally Sustainable and Traditional Materials
2013
The use of bioclimatic principles can reduce energy demands and CO2emissions in the building sector. Costs are one of the most important barriers to a widespread adoption of the green architecture e.[ The aim of this study is to compare the energy and economic performances of two buildings: a real residential bioclimatic building located in Cinisi (a small town near Palermo, Sicily) and an imaginary residential building supposed having the same geographical location, cubature, shape and orientation as the bioclimatic building but built by conventional building materials. The tools used for this study were TRNSYS and HOMER[
Role of Green Coverings in Mitigating Heat Island Effects: An Analysis of Physical Models
2012
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…
On the architectural and energy classification of existing buildings: a case study of a district in the city of Palermo
2016
Town Administrations are increasingly facing the challenge to identify smart planning actions to reduce the cities' energy demand by improving the efficiency of the urban energy systems. Buildings play an important role in this regarding both the demand and supply energy. In this scenario, the neighborhood or district scale seems to be the most appropriate to implement a multi-disciplinary approach on which smart planning relies. This paper shows the application, to a district of the city of Palermo (Sicily, Italy), of a methodology for architectural-energy classification of existing buildings. Such methodology provides, regarding the building sector, an easy tool that can support smart pla…
Tracking Mobile Robot in Indoor Wireless Sensor Networks
2014
Published version of an article in the journal: Mathematical Problems in Engineering. Also available from the publisher at: http://10.1155/2014/837050 This work addresses the problem of tracking mobile robots in indoor wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Our approach is based on a localization scheme with RSSI (received signal strength indication) which is used widely in WSN. The developed tracking system is designed for continuous estimation of the robot's trajectory. A WSN, which is composed of many very simple and cheap wireless sensor nodes, is deployed at a specific region of interest. The wireless sensor nodes collect RSSI information sent by mobile robots. A range-based data fusion sche…
Seeking the Important Nodes of Complex Networks in Product R&D Team Based on Fuzzy AHP and TOPSIS
2013
Published version of article in the journal: Mathematical Problems in Engineering. Alo available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/327592 Open Access How to seek the important nodes of complex networks in product research and development (R&D) team is particularly important for companies engaged in creativity and innovation. The previous literature mainly uses several single indicators to assess the node importance; this paper proposes a multiple attribute decision making model to tentatively solve these problems. Firstly, choose eight indicators as the evaluation criteria, four from centralization of complex networks: degree centrality, betweenness centrality, closeness…