Accurate assessment of both surface and interstitial condensation risk at the design stage of buildings is of great importance - not just to minimise the damaging effects moisture can cause to building envelopes, but also to contribute to the provision of adequate indoor air quality. Guidance certainly does exist with regards to limiting thermal bridging in order to prevent condensation occurring on new constructions.
This paper explores the degree to which subjective assessments of the acoustical properties of a real space can be reproduced by assessments that are based on computational auralization. Toward this end, three spaces with different functional and acoustical characteristics were selected. These spaces were evaluated by a group of test participants. A second group of test participants evaluated high quality auralizations of the spaces.
This paper addresses the application of fire and smoke simulation and computational fluid dynamics tools to events taking place in the new engineering building on the campus of the University of Montreal. The development steps include 3D CAD modeling of the entire building, geometry transfer and airflow, and fire simulation with enhanced rendering considering the optical properties of smoke and fire. The Fire Dynamics Simulator solver developed at NIST has been used to generate the necessary data for the fire visualization.
This paper deals with solar indicators and simulation as a step toward global assessment of a district. The final aim is to assess district projects as much exhaustively as possible, including among other things energy aspects, acoustic aspects, emissions… The present article deals only with solar aspects. First are presented the key indicators regarding solar aspects. Next, solar simulations are run at the scale of the district with the SOLENE software.
This paper reviews the validity of the ubiquitous daylighting rule of thumb (DRT) that relates window-head-height to the depth of the daylit area adjacent to a facade. Different versions of the rule taken from prominent daylighting design guides and norms are presented. A formal link is established between the depth of the daylit zone and the simulated daylight autonomy distribution in a space. Based on this link daylit zone depths of rectangular sidelit spaces are simulated using Radiance for a variety of climates, facade orientations, facade geometries, and usage patterns.
The aim of this study is to develop a simple method to predict heat flows and minimum surface temperatures in dynamic heat load calculation programs. A composition of two linear flow components is assumed instead of an element including a thermal bridge. A fractional area of the thermal bridge part is determined by the maximum and the average thermal transmittances. We also discuss a method to constitute a one-dimensional imaginary component of the thermal bridge.
A new model for predicting the thermal and electrical performance of solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC) cogeneration devices for residential buildings has been developed. This is a system-level model that considers the thermodynamic performance of all components that consume energy and produce the SOFC-cogeneration device’s thermal and electrical output. The model relies heavily upon empirical information that can be acquired from the testing of coherent systems or components and is designed for operation at a time resolution that is in the order of minutes.
With computational analysis and simulation becoming an increasingly important part of the building design process, the complexities of dealing with the huge amount of data that this can produce can be overwhelming for many designers. This is especially true in large projects where several different types of analysis may be required, spread out over various different areas of the building and dealing with many different parameters. Without a mechanism for managing and interrogating all the output, important trends and relationships within the data can easily be missed.
A new Energy Code for office buildings in Israel, currently under development, is presented. This code is based on a prescription approach, which can be easily applied as a tool for the design of office buildings through all the design stages including the early ones. The prescription approach suggested is based on the results obtained from an energetic economic optimization model that provides a recommended and preferred prescription for office building under prescribed constraints. A sensitivity analysis of the optimized solution follows.
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