Energy-saving Building Design Research Articles

Multi-Objective Optimization Technology for Building Energy-Saving Renovation Strategy Based on Genetic Algorithm

Building energy-saving design is significant for the industry to achieve carbon reduction and sustainable development. Firstly, a multi-objective model for energy consumption, cost, and carbon emissions is established based on the three-dimensional perspectives of society, nature, and economy. Then, a polynomial operator is used to improve the non dominated sorting genetic algorithm to calculate the optimal solution set. The low computational efficiency caused by direct coupling of algorithms in traditional optimization processes is expected to be addressed. According to the results, for the Square1 dataset and Iris dataset, the algorithm proposed in this study improved the reverse distance and convergence metrics by more than 70% compared to support vector machine-genetic algorithm and multi-objective clustering algorithm, with values closer to 0. The solution solved by this algorithm had lower building costs, energy consumption, and carbon emissions, with values of 345200 yuan, 2374 KWh/year, and 26 tons, respectively. This validates the effectiveness of the multi-objective model and solving algorithm established in the study, which helps to obtain the optimal energy-saving design scheme and provides reference for low-carbon optimization of building.

Theoretical study of the synergic relationships between the design parameters in energy-saving building design

With the rapid development of the economy, people have increasingly higher requirements for the comfort of living spaces, and the result is the sharp increase in building energy consumption. Several design parameters influence living space comfort and building energy efficiency. Since the same design standard can include different design parameter combinations, synergic relationships may exist between these criteria for one case. Identifying these synergic relationships requires an inverse problem approach. This paper established a model by combining an improved genetic algorithm (IGA) and numerical calculation to determine the synergic design parameter relationships (e.g. the thermophysical building material properties and energy-saving factors). For Isum=0\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${{\ ext{I}}}_{{\ ext{sum}}}= {0} $$\\end{document}, the shading coefficient significantly influenced the linear function between the thermal conductivity and insulation thickness. In this case, the insulation thickness was exponentially related to the shading coefficient, while the thermal conductivity of the insulation material significantly impacted the synergic relationship. For ESR=65%\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${\ ext{ESR}}{=65}\\%$$\\end{document}, the insulation thickness was a segmented function of the shading coefficient. The results verified that the proposed model was efficient and reliable for identifying the synergic relationships between energy-saving parameters. In engineering applications, designers can select the optimal design parameter combination based on the relationship curve between the parameters in this paper according to the local market conditions and specific design requirements.

Application of Building Intelligent Design in Energy Saving and Sustainable Development

With the rapid development of social and economic development, people's living standards to a certain extent has been continuously improved, building energy consumption further shows a trend of sustained growth, the apparent contradiction in the supply of energy resources in our country further aggravated. In order to the sustainable development of mankind, we must effectively reduce the energy consumption, and further implement the building energy conservation measures into practice. To a certain extent, effective control of building energy consumption, and further alleviate the contradiction between China's energy supply and economic and social development. Let building energy-saving design in China's energy saving and emission reduction to make the necessary contribution. China is a populous country, per capita resources are poor, people's overall average standard of living is low. With the deepening of China's reform and opening up, the Chinese people are gradually getting richer and richer, the Chinese people began to continuously improve their material life, especially the living environment, so China's construction business is also rapidly developing, with the increase of a large number of new buildings, the building energy consumption is growing rapidly. However, China's large population, the energy situation is not optimistic, reduce building energy consumption is the implementation of the scientific concept of development, to achieve sustainable development of the major strategic initiatives.

BIM-Based Building Performance Simulation Analysis: A Multi-Parameter-Driven Approach to Building Energy Efficiency and Carbon Reduction

Global warming and other environmental problems are increasing the demand for high-performance buildings. The development of high-performance computers and building information models has a significant impact on buildings’ energy simulation. High-performance building design needs to comprehensively consider geography, climate, material, cost and other factors which is a highly complex multidisciplinary research problem. Therefore, it is urgent to use advanced modeling and simulation technology to realize it, involving Building Information Modelling (BIM), parametric design and cloud platform. Comprehensive simulation of building performance refers to a multidisciplinary collaborative design, and the correlation between research objects and parameters should be achieved by complex programming design. This study integrates BIM, computer, cloud computing and other technologies to simulate BIM-based building energy consumption performance. Based on project information, geometry information and physical properties exhibited by materials stored in BIM model, the energy analysis model is created. Revit–Dynamo API functions are employed to generate a novel BIM model in Revit after automatically changing and transferring user-defined parameters. BIM energy consumption model is converted into Green Building eXtended Markup Language (GBXML) file and uploaded to Green Building Studio (GBS) cloud server. The optimal project solution is yielded by retrieving the energy consumption simulation results of BIM models with a range of parameters. The case study shows that building volume, glass material, window-wall ratio and window height have significant influence on energy consumption targets of buildings. In hot-summer and cold-winter areas, the total energy consumption of glass materials with high insulation and reflection coefficient is small. The window size slightly impacts the annual lighting energy consumption, but it has significant influence on the annual air conditioning energy consumption, with a maximum increase of about 22%. Finally, the application advantages and limitations of the framework in high-performance building design and its application prospects in energy-saving building design are discussed.

Demand-Oriented Review of a Dynamic Energy-Loss Monitoring System for Primary School Buildings through Micro-Environmental Data Monitoring and Occupant Behavior Analysis

The utilization of primary school buildings is multifaceted, primarily due to the high occupancy density, varying thermal preferences among occupants, diverse indoor activities (such as walking, sports, and conversation), and a constant flow of individuals entering and exiting the building. This results in the frequent opening and closing of external windows and doors and fluctuations in internal heat gain. Consequently, frequent interactions between the indoor and outdoor microenvironments lead to energy losses. This study conducts a comprehensive literature review on building energy loss stemming from occupant behavior and the interactions between indoor and outdoor microenvironments. Furthermore, it proposes a dynamic real-time monitoring system based on a foundation of computer data capture and a visualization platform for building energy loss. The research methods include data crawling, data association rule mining, and data association analysis. The research findings yield a universally applicable and informative building energy-saving design system based on extensive data analysis. Additionally, the system presents information on occupants’ behavior and the microclimate data of indoor and outdoor environments on a computer screen, facilitating human–machine communication and enabling timely adjustments to be made, thus facilitating the construction of design strategies for new buildings and operation and maintenance strategies for existing buildings.

A Review on Adaptive Thermal Comfort of Office Building for Energy-Saving Building Design

The thermal environment quality of office buildings has an important role because thermal comfort is directly related to human productivity. Thermal comfort conditions are influenced by climate, location, and the built environment; hence, comfort standards are required to assist building designers in creating a comfortable indoor environment for building occupants. In this context, the present study analyzes the adaptive thermal comfort studies conducted in office buildings from various countries. A large number of research articles selected from the Scopus database were considered for this study. Based on the analysis, outdoor climatic conditions have a greater influence on indoor thermal conditions in naturally ventilated than in air-conditioned office buildings. The temperature required for comfort is as low as 17.6 °C and as high as 31.2 °C in naturally ventilated buildings. An adaptive comfort equation for naturally ventilated and air-conditioned office buildings has also been proposed to predict the indoor comfort temperature. Various studies show that a substantial amount of energy can be saved by changing the set point and natural ventilation. Furthermore, this study successfully provides hearty evidence that there is a need for climate-specific standards on thermal comfort for energy-efficient design development because existing comfort standards might not be applicable to all climates.

BIM-Based Multi-Objective Optimization of Low-Carbon and Energy-Saving Buildings

Global warming and other environmental problems are increasing the demand for green and low-carbon buildings. The development of high-performance computers and building information models has a significant impact on low-carbon buildings. Low-carbon building design needs to comprehensively consider geography, climate, material, cost and other factors, a highly complex multidisciplinary research problem. Therefore, it is urgent to use advanced modeling and simulation technology, involving BIM, parametric design, cloud platform and evolutionary algorithm. This paper proposes a BIM based low-carbon building design optimization framework, which realizes the comprehensive trade-off function of building low-carbon energy saving and daylighting performance through an improved genetic algorithm. The framework drives BIM through parameterization and integrates building environment information, geometric information and operation information, including six parts: BIM model establishment, parameter-driven development, building performance simulation, multi-objective optimization design, Pareto frontier analysis, and energy-saving decision-making and evaluation. The case study shows that the simulation results obtained through the framework can effectively achieve building energy conservation while maximizing the lighting performance of the building, providing a scientific basis and reference for construction professionals to design low-carbon buildings. Finally, the application advantages and limitations of the framework in low-carbon building design and its application prospects in low-carbon energy-saving building design are discussed. This research has made contributions to the multi-disciplinary low-carbon energy conservation research field, realized the multi-objective optimization strategy of building performance based on BIM, genetic algorithm and simulation, and is an important supplement to existing building energy conservation and emission reduction optimization design.

Machine Learning-Based Method for Detached Energy-Saving Residential Form Generation

In recent years, machine learning has gradually been applied to building energy-saving designs to reduce the time consumption of the optimization screening stage. However, since most of the existing research scholars come from the fields of computers and engineering, the application of machine learning technology mostly involves complex programming as well as software in the field of engineering, which requires multiple software to be coupled to achieve. In view of the differences between disciplines and the high learning threshold, these theories are difficult to apply and promote in practical work in the field of architecture. In this regard, this paper focuses on the improvement of methods, based on the Grasshopper platform, proposes a detached energy-saving residential form generation design method and process, to explore the optimal energy-saving building form in a more concise and efficient way. Based on this new method, on the basis of verifying its feasibility through a residential building case, two machine learning algorithms, neural network (ANN) and support vector machine (SVM), are compared and studied, and the applicability of these two algorithms in different building performance indicators is further discussed. The results show that the ANN model has the highest accuracy and is more suitable for the prediction of building energy consumption; in view of the simple and fast operation of SVM, it is more suitable for comfort prediction with relatively low accuracy requirements. By combining the above two machine learning methods, work efficiency can be improved while satisfying the prediction of relevant performance indicators. This method can help architects quickly search for the best building energy-saving form design scheme in the scheme design stage and provide data support and information feedback for architects in design conception and deepening.

Discussion on New Energy Utilization in Building Energy-saving Design

Discussion on New Energy Utilization in Building Energy-saving Design

Application and Discussion of Green, Environmental Protection, Low-carbon and Energy-saving Building Design

Application and Discussion of Green, Environmental Protection, Low-carbon and Energy-saving Building Design

Research on Energy-Saving Design Method of Green Building Based on BIM Technology

In view of the shortcomings of the traditional architectural design mode, such as high rework rate in the construction process and lack of collaborative design and intelligent information processing, a green building energy-saving design method based on BIM technology was proposed. Based on the comparative analysis of traditional computer-aided building design and BIM green building technology, the overall scheme of energy-saving design was constructed from the aspects of green building design principle, design preparation, and design concept. This paper expounded the connotation of energy-saving design elements from the aspects of modeling software selection, envelope energy-saving design, and lighting energy-saving design. Accordingly, the characteristics and process of building energy efficiency analysis based on BIM were proposed. Finally, the energy-saving effect evaluation method of green building based on BIM was given, and an example showed that the energy-saving design method of green building based on BIM proposed in this paper had good feasibility and effectiveness. The method proposed in this paper can provide a certain theoretical basis and application support for the application of BIM technology in the field of green building.

Theoretical Study of Synergic Relationships between Design Parameters in Energy-Saving Building Design

Theoretical Study of Synergic Relationships between Design Parameters in Energy-Saving Building Design

Thermal performance and parametric analysis of a dual-function active solar thermal façade system

The demand for environment-friendly and energy-saving building design stimulates the organic integration of buildings and energy systems, especially solar energy systems. For this purpose, an innovative configuration of the active solar thermal façade (ASTF) system is proposed. The studied system has the function of collecting, transferring and storing solar energy for building use and reducing the buildings’ cooling and heating loads. This paper endeavors to investigate the thermal performance of the ASTF system for energy supply and load reduction. Therefore, a test rig with ASTF was built and a dynamic mathematical model of the ASTF was developed and validated. The effects of different parameters on thermal performance have been studied. The findings are that the heat collecting efficiency of the ASTF system was 44.6 % and 45.3 % on the sunny and cloudy summer day and was 55.0 % and 35.5 % on the sunny and cloudy winter day. And the average daily transfer coefficient of the ASTF was 1.35 W/(m2 K) and 1.26 W/(m2 K) on the sunny and cloudy summer day, while it was 0.53 W/(m2 K) and 0.34 W/(m2 K) on the sunny winter cloudy winter day. Heat flux of the ASTF is decreased with the increase of tilt angle in summer and decreased with the increase of the tank volume to collector area ratio. Besides, the heat flux of the ASTF can be cut down by reducing the control temperature difference at lower band or increasing the thickness of the insulation layer. It can be concluded that the ASTF system can realize the double advantages of active energy supply and passive energy saving and its performance in winter is superior to that in summer. Thermal performance investigation results of the novel ASTF can be beneficial to further research and application.

The Applicability of the Current Thermal Climate Zones for Building Energy-Saving Design of China

Climate has a great impact on the thermal performance of buildings. This study aims to provide a theoretical foundation for developing climate classification for building energy-saving in China. The current thermal climate zoning mothed was evaluated by using the mean deviation to assess its applicability on guiding building energy-saving design in China by using the latest weather data measured from 1988 to 2017. The analysis results indicate that current thermal climate zones cannot present the difference in atmospheric moisture and solar radiation in different regions. The current cold zone is unable to reveal the discrepancy of the monthly average temperature of hottest month in different regions. To provide an adequate guidance for the energy efficient design of HVAC systems as well as for passive building design, the main zoning criteria should be revised and the climate indices relating to air humidity and solar radiation should be considered in the future.

Modifying Building Energy-Saving Design Based on Field Research into Climate Features and Local Residents’ Habits

In China, a surging urbanization highlights the significance of building energy conservation. However, most building energy-saving schemes are designed solely in compliance with prescriptive codes and lack consideration of the local situations, resulting in an unsatisfactory effect and a waste of funds. Moreover, the actual effect of the design has yet to be thoroughly verified through field tests. In this study, a method of modifying conventional building energy-saving design based on research into the local climate and residents’ living habits was proposed, and residential buildings in Panzhihua, China were selected for trial. Further, the modification scheme was implemented in an actual project with its effect verified by field tests. Research grasps the precise climate features of Panzhihua, which was previously not provided, and concludes that Panzhihua is a hot summer and warm winter zone. Accordingly, the original internal insulation was canceled, and the shading performance of the windows was strengthened instead. Test results suggest that the consequent change of SET* does not exceed 0.5 °C, whereas variations in the energy consumption depend on the room orientation. For rooms receiving less solar radiation, the average energy consumption increased by approximately 20%, whereas for rooms with a severe western exposure, the average energy consumption decreased by approximately 11%. On the other hand, the cost savings of removing the insulation layer are estimated at 177 million RMB (1 USD ≈ 6.5 RMB) per year. In conclusion, the research-based modification method proposed in this study can be an effective tool for improving building energy efficiency adapted to local conditions.

Study on wintry comfort temperature and thermal improvement of houses in cold, temperate, and subtropical regions of Nepal

Nepalese households have been using electricity from hydropower plants at almost the lowest rate among other countries. Residents adjust their indoor environments by relying on very primitive methods. This study focuses on the thermal comfort of residents in Nepalese households and how it can be improved by enhancing the thermal insulation of the houses investigated. A field survey was conducted in winter in cold, temperate, and subtropical regions, and 839 thermal sensation votes were collected from all regions together with the measured indoor and outdoor temperatures. The mean comfort temperatures estimated using Griffiths’ method were 17.2 °C, 20.9 °C, and 21.7 °C in the cold, temperate, and subtropical regions, respectively. The comfort temperature exhibited a large regional difference. The average measured indoor air temperatures in the cold, temperate, and subtropical regions were 10.9 °C, 18 °C, and 20 °C, respectively, and they were 6.3 °C, 2.9 °C, and 2 °C lower than the average estimated comfort temperature. The indoor globe temperature of the cold region was significantly lower than the comfort temperature. In the cold region during winter, the indoor climate can be improved because the indoor temperature is rated as slightly uncomfortable. By enhancing the thermal insulation and reducing the infiltration, the indoor air temperature was found to increase by 1.1–1.8 °C. The findings of this study should be useful in providing a good indoor thermal environment for houses and energy-saving building design in Nepalese society.

3D virtual technology for space design in green building energy-saving design

3D virtual technology for space design in green building energy-saving design

3D virtual technology for space design in green building energy-saving design

In order to solve the problem that the traditional green building energy-saving design method does not establish a 3D model, resulting in poor energy-saving effect and low accuracy of information collection, this paper proposes a 3D virtual technology of space design in green building energy-saving design. The sketch modelling method is used to build the three-dimensional virtual model of green building, and the initial model is drawn by using UVW map coordinates in 3dsmax software. The maintenance information, meteorological parameters, indoor and outdoor ventilation information of green energy-saving buildings are obtained by using GIS technology, and relevant information is imported into DeST-c software to simulate and analyse the thermal balance of green buildings. It is graded by stages, and different thermal performance indicators are obtained to simulate the energy consumption of green buildings. The experimental results show that this method can accurately collect building information in green building energy-saving design, and greatly reduce building energy consumption.

Effect of moisture on the thermal performance of exterior walls in the tropical islands of the South China Sea

Accurate evaluation of the moisture effect on the thermal performance of building envelopes is essential to facilitate energy-saving building design in hot and humid climate areas. However, in extremely hot and humid climate areas, the coupled effect between the heat and moisture transfer is mostly neglected and a method to evaluate the moisture effect on the thermal performance has never been proposed. Thus, in this paper, a model is developed to simulate the coupled heat and moisture transfer inside an exterior wall subjected to extremely hot and humid climate. This model is validated using three benchmark tests and shows high accuracy. Based on the model, the effect of the moisture on the thermal performance of exterior walls in the tropical islands is firstly investigated quantitatively. The results show that moisture can substantially affect the thermal performance of an exterior wall. Neglecting the moisture effect, the total load is underestimated by 6.04–7.33%. Considering the moisture effect, the decrement factor is improved from 26.27–38.28 to 79.40–114.41 and the time lag is prolonged by 71–79 min. Finally, to clarify the spatiotemporal dynamic pattern of the moisture effect, a comparison between the four tropical islands and the continental city is performed.

Research and Discussion on Design Method of Energy-saving Architecture Oriented to the Full Life Cycle

The full life cycle architectural design requires to start at the design stage, fully consider the important links in each stage of architectural design, construction as well as operation management and optimize the design of green energy saving on the basis of the concept of taking the whole situation into consideration. Different from traditional architectural design, the building energy-saving design oriented to the full life cycle has higher design requirements for the integrity, coordination, integration and parallelism of the project life cycle. In this paper, it starts from the design concepts of energy saving, environmental protection and green to discuss the methods of energy saving and emission reduction in architectural design. It aims to provide some references for green architectural design.