Search results for "Energy savings"
showing 9 items of 19 documents
Assessing the effectiveness of green roofs in enhancing the energy and indoor comfort resilience of urban buildings to climate change: Methodology pr…
2021
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…
Advanced control system for optimal filtration in submerged anaerobic MBRs (SAnMBRs)
2013
The main aim of this study was to develop an advanced controller to optimise filtration in submerged anaerobic MBRs (SAnMBRs). The proposed controller was developed, calibrated and validated in a SAnMBR demonstration plant fitted with industrial-scale hollow-fibre membranes with variable influent flow and load. This 2-layer control system is designed for membranes operating sub-critically and features a lower layer (on/off and PID controllers) and an upper layer (knowledge-based controller). The upper layer consists of a MIMO (multiple-input-multiple-output) control structure that regulates the gas sparging for membrane scouring and the frequency of physical cleaning (ventilation and back f…
Leading agritourism facilities along Nearly Zero Energy paths: Proposal of an easy-to-use evaluation method
2020
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…
Software for the heat flow evaluation of the nearly-zero houses
2015
The windows in a building are the weakest part for energy saving and reduced consumption. In particular, the choice of window frames and glazing systems directly influences the amount of heat loss through a houses envelope. The paper will show the results of a work developed by PADesign srl company (Accademic Spin off of the Università degli Studi di Palermo). This is a software tool that allows a rapid comparison about the windows thermal performances, by calculating the global thermal transmittance and by showing the trend of the heat flow. The tool has a simple graphical interface that allows the users to select the climate data, the window typologies, the geometric features and the mate…
“Hypotheses of Integration of DSC into the Glassblock for teh Construction of Translucent Building Envelope”
2012
New configurations of the glassblock have been designed at the Department of Architecture of the University of Palermo in order to reduce its U value responding to the latest national and international regulation limits for the thermal insulation of the buildings with glass façades. One of these new configurations consists in the insertion of a special plastic "belt" between the two glass shells composing the glassblock, which have to be glued to it (cold assembly); the plastic belt effectively interrupts the thermal bridge between the two glass shells. Thanks to the particular design of its shape, the "thermal belt" can be also used for the insertion of one or more additional sheets of dif…
STUDIO DI UNA FRIZIONE MAGNETOREOLOGICA PER AUTOVEICOLI
2013
Dopo un’accurata ricerca bibliografica sui fluidi magnetoreologici, il loro comportamento ed impiego, si è passati alla progettazione di una frizione magnetoreologica per autoveicoli. Considerando le caratteristiche di coppia trasmessa e potenza, il dispositivo è stato dimensionato tenendo presente i vincoli di ingombro del veicolo preso in esame. Sottoponendo il dispositivo ad analisi magnetostatica agli elementi finiti, si è determinato l’andamento delle linee di flusso del campo magnetico nel meato di fluido e nelle zone di maggior interesse, calcolando la coppia teoricamente trasmessa dall’innesto.È stato anche eseguito il confronto delle prestazionifra una frizione MR ed una frizione t…
Tax benefits for the energy requalification of Italian real estate assets
2020
The need for energy-efficient buildings has emerged since the onset of the first energy crises in the 1970s. It's in this decade that the concepts of sustainable development and energy saving have been introduced in the construction sector. Currently, the greatest energy saving potential for buildings does not lie in new buildings, but in the energy redevelopment of existing buildings. In order to promote interventions for building restoration, which are often costly and not economically convenient, Italian legislation has made a series of economic incentives available to the sector. This work reviews the main incentive systems for the energy requalification of buildings.
Comparison Between Conventional and Vegetated Roof by Means of a Dynamic Simulation
2015
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://…
Enabling Energy Savings in Offshore Mechatronic Systems by using Self-Contained Cylinders
2019
This paper proposes a novel actuation system for an offshore drilling application. It consists of three self-contained electro-hydraulic cylinders that can share and store regenerated energy. The energy saving potential of the proposed solution is analyzed through a multibody system simulation. The self-contained system demonstrates superior energy efficiency compared to the benchmark system representing the state-of-the-art approach used today (i.e., valve-controlled cylinders by means of pressure-compensated directional control valves and counter-balance valves, supplied by a centralized hydraulic power unit). Due to the power on demand capability, the cancellation of the throttling losse…