Passive hygrothermal control of a museum storage building

For optimal conservation of the stored objects, museum storage buildings require a very stable interior climate, with only minimal and slow variations in temperature and relative humidity. Often extensive HVAC is installed to provide such stable indoor conditions, which results in a great amout of C02 emission. The purpose for this paper is to show that it is possible to reach the goal of using renewable energy for museum storage buildings by rethinking the strategy for the dehumidification design and in this way contribute to a C02 neutral environment.

Simulation of the behavior of phase change materials for the improvement of thermal comfort in lightweight buildings

This paper describes the results of a study aimed at assessing the effectiveness of Phase Change Materials (PCM) for the improvement of summer thermal comfort in lightweight buildings. The work is based on simulations on a test room in a real building. By varying the thickness of the PCM panel, installed on the inner side of the internal partitions of the test room, as well as the intensity of the night mechanical ventilation and the ways the panels are installed, some interesting conclusions concerning the effectiveness of PCMs on thermal comfort are obtained.

A simplified dynamic systems approach for the energy rating of dwellings

The drive to reduce carbon emissions and energy utilisation, directly associated with dwellings and to achieve a zero carbon home, suggests that the assessment of energy ratings will have an increasingly prioritised role in the built environment. Created by the Building Research Establishment (BRE), the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) is the UK Government’s recommended method of assessing the energy ratings of dwellings.

CFD modelling of plume interaction in natural ventilation

This paper investigates the accuracy of CFD simulation in predicting the nature of multiple plume interactions in a naturally ventilated indoor environment. RANS-based turbulence models; k-ε and RNG k-ε were used to predict the twin plume interaction experiment reported by Kaye and Linden (2004). It was observed that the k-ε turbulence model showed a large discrepancy with measurements while the results obtained from the RNG k-ε model were in better accord with the experimental results. A grid sensitivity analysis of the computational solution also formed part of this study. 

Annual energy-using simulation of separate heat-pipe heat exchanger

A kind of separate heat-pipe heat exchanger (SHP exchanger), which can move heat from indoor air to outdoor air by making use of their temperature difference, uses much less energy consumption than air-conditioning system in base station due to none of compressor. This study built up an annual energy-using simulation module of SHP exchanger in DeST by building the model of SHP exchanger and accomplishing the coupling calculation of it and the model of dynamic thermal process in building.

Evaluation and minimization of the energy impact of typical European buildings on the electricity grid: a simulation case study

People spend around 90% of their time in buildings while about 40% of primary energy needs are due to buildings. That is why the present paper deals with a method allowing identifying and assessing the energy impact of a building on the electricity grid. Thanks to the wide range of building models we developed and fuzzy logic contribution, the results we obtained in simulation validate the proposed impact indicator.

Optimization of local renewable energy systems using automotive simulation approaches

With the rising individual demand for energy as well as the diminishing fossil energy resources, new opti-mized concepts for energy supply and usage are re-quired for future buildings. To address these chal-lenges, renewable energy sources and decentralized storage are matters of rapidly growing importance.  Electric mobility concepts and electrical vehicles address these challenges but provide additional requirements due to power and energy demands.

Comparing the robustness of building regulation and low energy design philosophies

The sensitivity of a real (under construction) UK school building’s energy consumption to input parameters was investigated using IES Virtual Environment.  Differential sensitivity analysis and Monte Carlo analysis were conducted for two base models, one set at 2006 Building Regulation standards and one at Passivhaus certification level.  Heated temperature and envelope specification were the dominant factors governing energy consumption for the Building Regulation model, while for the Passivhaus model occupancy parameters and class equipment load were most important.

Exploring rapid prototyping techniques for validating numerical models of naturally ventilated buildings

An alternative to using numerical simulation to model ventilation performance is to model internal air flows using water-based experimental models. However, these can be time consuming and the manual nature of model assembly means that exploring detail and design variations is often prohibitively expensive. Additive, or Rapid manufacturing processes can build physical models directly from 3D-CAD data and is widely used in product development within the aero-automotive and consumer goods industries.

Electricity load management in smart home control

The achievement of sustainable goals in the home environment demands an optimized management of electricity loads from the control side.The present work proposes a control approach based on an appropriate load definition, context awareness regarding user behaviours and the persuasive capabili-ties of pervasive systems. Beyond further benefits, the main aim is focused on the improvement of the elas-ticity of the electricity market.In order to check the proposal, some simulations com-paring common users and “optimized” users are per-formed.

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