Building Integration Research Articles

Safety assessment of ancient buddhist pagoda induced by underpass metro tunnel blasting vibration

In the blasting excavation project of the subway tunnel in the urban area, ensuring the safety of the surface buildings (structures) above the crossing area is the key concern. This paper is based on the blasting project of the ancient pagoda (Shengxiang Pagoda) under the tunnel between Pengliuyang Road Station and Simenkou Station of Wuhan Metro Line 5. To protect the integrity of the ancient buildings, this paper mainly adopts the numerical simulation method to analyze the dynamic response characteristics of the tower above the subway and realizes the safety assessment of the tower based on the maximum principal stress and vibration velocity control. The results show that the maximum error rate between the measured data and the numerical simulation results is only 11.9 %, which verifies the reliability of the numerical model and parameters. In the process of blasting vibration propagation, the vibration velocity of the tower body is affected by the whiplash effect and the elevation amplification effect. The vibration velocity of the tower bottom is 0.29 cm / s, and the vibration velocity of the tower tip reaches 4.29 cm / s. The vibration velocity of the upper part of the tower is much larger than that of the lower part. The stress distribution of the tower body is accompanied by stress concentration, with the maximum reaching 0.0442 MPa and the minimum only 0.014 MPa. The safety assessment of the ancient pagoda from the aspects of structural strength and vibration velocity can determine that the structure is safe under this condition. The research results are of great significance to the analysis of dynamic response characteristics and safety evaluation of ancient buildings under blasting load in urban complex environments.

The Arabic language and the Impact of the Holy Qur’an on Its Prosperity and Preservation

This research attempts to look at the emergence of the Arabic language through the stages of work until its completion in terms of its linguistic systems and structures, and then the levels of communication with the recipient are interconnected, and the relationship of this emergence and integration in buildings with the revelation of the Holy Qur'an to present this blessed divine text to the parquet as a whole that is a linguistic model for it. Until the challenged the Arabs, who are the people of the language, and then a witness and evidence of the greatness of the Arabic language and its high status among the languages of the world. The status of the Holy Qur'an among Arabs and other nations has had a great impact on their great care for this language and their eagerness to serve it. Semitic for linguistic and grammatical studies throughout the ages, the scholar of Islam presented the best literary and scientific products in a sound Arabic language, based on their strong love for this language, and their great concern that these monuments remain immortal in the language of the Holy Qur'an.

Dopant engineering for ZnO electron transport layer towards efficient perovskite solar cells.

The conventional electron transport layer (ETL) TiO2 has been widely used in perovskite solar cells (PSCs), which have produced exceptional power conversion efficiencies (PCE), allowing the technology to be highly regarded and propitious. Nevertheless, the recent high demand for energy harvesters in wearable electronics, aerospace, and building integration has led to the need for flexible solar cells. However, the conventional TiO2 ETL layer is less preferred, where a crystallization process at a temperature as high as 450 °C is required, which degrades the plastic substrate. Zinc oxide nanorods (ZnO NRs) as a simple and low-cost fabrication material may fulfil the need as an ETL, but they still suffer from low PCE due to atomic defect vacancy. To delve into the issue, several dopants have been reviewed as an additive to passivate or substitute the Zn2+ vacancies, thus enhancing the charge transport mechanism. This work thereby unravels and provides a clear insight into dopant engineering in ZnO NRs ETL for PSC.

Lime-based nanocomposites for masonry restoration: Towards the implementation of small-scale restoration

The structural integrity of historic and traditional buildings can be affected by natural weathering and incompatible restoration interventions. Traditionally, lime binders have been used extensively for restoration applications, while the incorporation of multi walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) in such a binder, enhances the restoration material with increased mechanical as well as with self-sensing properties due to its piezoresistive characteristics. The focal point of the present investigation was the examination of the electrical, mechanical, and piezoresistive properties of a composite nano-reinforced lime-based mortar paste under different geometrical sizes (scale-up tests). Firstly, prismatic specimens of two different sizes, composed of the proposed nano-reinforced lime-based mortar were subjected to testing and compared against reference prismatic prisms of traditional non-reinforced lime-based mortar with a similar composition. The results showed a 24 % increase in the compressive strength and a 37.5 % decrease in the electrical resistance. Secondly, electrical resistance measurements were carried out on a small-scaled masonry specimen built with the MWCNTs reinforced lime-based mortar, to determine potential structure inhomogeneity effects. The tests revealed approximately 50 % electrical resistance decrease in comparison to the non-reinforced reference prismatic specimens. Lastly, the composite restoration material was applied at an actual masonry restoration project at the public library “Korais” of Chios Island, Greece, with the aim to monitor the composite material’s electrical resistance under real conditions.

Ensuring the projects’ environmental safety based on a risk-based approach

The modern construction pay attention to fundamentally new requirements, the quality of products and service and improve the quality management system of green building and environmental safety facilities. The integration of new energy efficient technologies and energy efficient buildings is one of the priority options in the development of modern cities. The article use the methods of comparative analysis of the various international standards of green buildings and eco-certification of greening systems were applied, based on a risk-based approach. Risks are calculated using complex methods. The assessment of green building sustainability was considered as is a key factor of reducing technogenic risks and be the guarantee that the green building is environmentally friendly. The analysis showed the main regulatory and technical documents used in the construction of buildings with the use of greening systems, considered the basic safety requirements when working at height, and also evaluated the application of standards in the field of environmental certification of materials of new technologies used, developed by authors.The ecological certificate allows to increase the competitiveness of products in the market, which is economically beneficial.The principles of green building are aimed at creating a healthy and comfortable environment due to a large amount of daylight and fresh air.

Analysis of progressive collapse of building using ETABS

Increasing seismicity and a proportionate rise in the construction of tall buildings have increased the relevance of progressive collapse analysis for building structures. This paper aims to compare the Demand Capacity Ratio (DCR) values of two buildings, which were modelled according to the guidelines of IS 1893 (part 1) - 2016 and Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment (PSHA), using linear static analysis. The analysis was conducted using ETABS software, following the guidelines of IS:456–2000 and IS:1893 (part 1) - 2016, with DCR serving as an indicative parameter. The failure of the corner column and the peripheral column were examined. The DCR values of adjacent columns and beams were calculated to check their failure and analyse the collapse. Among the two models analysed, it was observed that the model designed according to the guidelines of IS 1893 (part 1) - 2016 exhibited a lower DCR value, suggesting a higher level of resistance to progressive collapse and a greater margin of safety. The insights gained from this study can contribute to the development of more resilient and robust design practices, ultimately ensuring the safety and structural integrity of buildings during extreme events.

Translucent perovskite photovoltaics for building integration

This work presents the scalable fabrication of micro-patterned translucent perovskite single-junction and tandem PV with optical quality suited for BIPV and introduces the novel concept of transmittance gradients for architectural individualization.

Decoupling Semantic and Edge Representations for Building Footprint Extraction From Remote Sensing Images

Very high-resolution (VHR) earth observation systems provide an ideal data source for man-made structure detection such as building footprint extraction. Manually delineating building footprints from the remotely sensed VHR images, however, is laborious and time-intensive; thus, automation is needed in the building extraction process to increase productivity. Recently, many researchers have focused on developing building extraction algorithms based on the encoder-decoder architecture of convolutional neural networks. However, we observe that this widely adopted architecture cannot well preserve the precise boundaries and integrity of the extracted buildings. Moreover, features obtained by shallow convolutional layers contain irrelevant background noises that degrade building feature representations. This paper addresses these problems by presenting a feature decoupling network (FD-Net) that exploits two essential building information from the input image, including semantic information that concerns building integrity and edge information that improves building boundaries. The proposed FD-Net improves the existing encoder-decoder framework by decoupling image features into the edge subspace and the semantic subspace; the decoupled features are then integrated by a supervision-guided fusion process considering the heterogeneity between edge and semantic features. Furthermore, a lightweight and effective global context attention module is introduced to capture contextual building information and thus enhance feature representations. Comprehensive experimental results on three real-world datasets confirm the effectiveness of FD-Net in large-scale building mapping. We applied the proposed method to various encoder-decoder variants to verify the generalizability of the proposed framework. Experimental results show remarkable accuracy improvements with less computational cost.

Design, fabrication and preliminary testing of plasmonic luminescent solar concentrator devices

This paper details the design process, fabrication, optimisation and early-stage performance testing of Luminescent and Plasmonic Luminescent Solar Concentrator (LSC & PLSC) devices. A PLSC is a novel approach to solar concentrator technologies that utilizes the principles of luminescence and plasmonics to enhance the devices' solar energy conversion efficiency. This research analyses various mould dimensions, materials and lightguide fabrication methodologies to ensure equivalent LSC/PLSC devices were created in a reproducible method. The optimisation was an iterative process throughout the production and testing stages after which a 100 × 100 × 5 mm PLSC was identified as the optimal for a rooftop installation. To ensure consistency in production as well as assessing the practicality of PLSC installations for building integration, performance testing has been conducted in both indoor and outdoor environments. Additionally, the lifespan of the devices are currently being investigated through ongoing performance evaluations. The incorporation of a reflective backplate has resulted in device efficiency improvements between 14–18% during indoor tests and was consequently included for all devices during outdoor performance analysis. Power conversion efficiencies of 2.3% and 1.7% have been recorded in sub-optimal conditions as well as concentration ratios of 11 and 9 for the PLSC and LSC devices respectively.

Design and assessment of building integrated PV (BIPV) system towards net zero energy building for tropical climate

Recent increment trend of renewable energy generation demand has revolutionised on how modern civilisation harnessing energy from renewable source especially the solar energy. According to IRENA, about 53% increase of solar energy installed capacity had been reported from year 2017 to 2021. This trend is expected to be doubles as revised Energy Efficient Directive (EU) is committed to add renewable share from 17% from 2015 to 34% in 2030. Among the effort to achieve the target highlighted by International Energy Agency (IEA) in their Net Zero by 2050 Roadmap is to develop or improved energy management on existing and new building to meet net zero energy building. One of the emerging and fast-growing solution is implementing Building Integration Photovoltaic (BIPV) as it offered not only clean electricity generation but also seamless integration aspect to the building envelope. However, due to a limitation factor such as insufficient BIPV infrastructure which dominantly base in European countries. This scenario limits the technology progress especially in Asian countries. Although attractive benefit shown by BIPV system, it is still having a crucial limitation on the visual and aesthetic appearance which considered as “unattractive” to the building appearance by viewers. Thus, there will be quite an issue to implement BIPV on architectural sensitive building such as historic and iconic building. In order to solve this issue, a pilot study of coloured BIPV system performance is conducted on an iconic building in tropical climate region which is Daya Bumi Building, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The method adopted is based on cross-platform between 3D modelling simulation in Building Information Modelling (BIM) software and detail solar analysis (PVsyst) to obtain accurate analysis results. Varies of coloured PV modules are assess and compared to obtain the optimum BIPV system configuration. The proposed BIPV system is able to produce energy of 679.72 MW annually with carbon saving of 10367.66 tCO2/year of CO2 emission. The coloured BIPV application are expected to camouflage the PV panel appearance on the building which could preserve the original architectural aesthetic. This research promotes conscious of BIPV as a crucial innovative solution in implementing PV panel on building without sacrificing the architectural aesthetic value. Furthermore, BIPV system design using BIM software can be replicate to provide seamless work transition between building architecture, structural engineering, renewable energy engineering and building operations. This is in line with Malaysian 10-10MySTIE Framework effort to transform into a knowledge-intensive and innovation driven economy which include production, management and distribution of energy from renewable energy sources.

Separatism Movement and Contemporary Reconciliation: Causes and its Impact towards Political Development in Papua

The separatism occurs in Papua that comes from the root of complex problems, resulting in ongoing conflict between the Free Papua Organization (OPM) and the state. Separatism and conflict in Papua have had a significant impact on political development. This research uses Tedd Robert Gurr's theory of relative deprivation and Lucian Pye's theory of political development as well as qualitative methods. This research examines conflicts and separatism that occur in Papua and their relation to Papuan political development. The result of this research indicates that political development in Papua has not been successful. The discrepancy between expectations for progress and realities can lead to significant political violence. The strengthening of collective discontent can be politicized and produce radical and even separatist resistance movements. These conditions can hinder the course of the political development process, because of the difficulty of building integration and creating political stability.

BIM-FM in existing buildings: a case study on educational and high-rise residential buildings

Purpose Facility management (FM) is regarded as an emerging issue in civil engineering and is responsible for ensuring the building's expected performance. The purpose of this study is to analyze buildings' current FM processes for educational and high residential segments and propose an FM-building information modeling (BIM) (BIM6D) to understand the information flow and leading players with and without FM-BIM integration. Design/methodology/approach The research strategy was a case study with data from the FM process of two buildings. This study was carried out in three stages: diagnosis of FM of the two buildings, FM-BIM integration and information flow and leading players analysis. Maintenance activities were categorized according to periodicity and status criteria for each project element for FM-BIM integration and were visualized in the Revit design using Dynamo software. Findings The results of this study show differences in how FM is conducted, especially in formalization and preventive character, and similarities regarding the difficulty of foreseen and lack of control because of scattered, disconnected and incomplete information on both. The visual appeal of the FM-BIM integration facilitates information access. It optimizes the use of the digital model through the most prolonged phase of the life cycle of a building (post-occupation phase). However, FM-BIM challenges buildings that do not have digital model expertise as residential segments. This study suggests a more significant role for construction companies in these cases. Originality/value This study investigates BIM-FM integration of buildings in two different contexts and reveals the importance of a construction company's role in buildings in the residential segment. This study contributes with real-life cases on BIM in existing buildings, discussing the value and challenges of BIM in FM applications.

Investigation of vacuum-integrated switchable polymer dispersed liquid crystal glazing for smart window application for less energy-hungry building

The presence of more than one transparency and controllable intermediate transmission between ON and OFF states make the switchable smart glazing more attractive for less energy-hungry building integration than a static transparent window. However, to enable this switchable glazing for cold climatic buildings, overall heat transfer through the glazing needs to be reduced. In this work, the thermal and optical performance of integrated polymer dispersed liquid crystal and low heat loss transparent vacuum glazing was investigated using indoor characterisation. Two systems were developed where PDLC glazing was sandwiched between a vacuum and one acrylic sheet (Vacuum-PDLCA) and vacuum and glass (Vacuum-PDLCG). The employment of acrylic sheets reduced 21% of the overall weight of the system which made it suitable for retrofit building integration. Use of acrylic reduced 35% of solar transmission of PDLC ON state compared to the use of glass. Overall heat transfer coefficient (U-value) or thermal transmittance was below 1.1 W/m2K for all Vacuum -PDLCG and Vacuum-PDLCA ON and OFF states. Solar heat gain coefficient or solar energy transmittance was highest at 0.45 for the Vacuum-PDLCG ON state and lowest at 0.23 for the Vacuum-PDLCA OFF state.

Characteristic analysis of patterned photovoltaic modules for building integration

PV modules with customizable appearances have become attractive due to the falling cost of PV cells and the increasing demand for BIPV projects, whereas the impact of patterns on module performance has not been studied in terms of mechanism. This paper introduced a circuit simulation method for PV modules with various pattern styles, and its robustness was validated extensively through custom PV mini-module that allow for I-V curve measurements and analysis. The electrical and thermal characteristics of dot-matrix patterned (DMP) module, including short-circuit current, fill factor, peak power, energy efficiency and temperature distribution, were analyzed in detail. The results demonstrated that pattern shading decreased the module power but slightly increased the fill factor and relative efficiency, in addition to which, the power reduction of dot-matrix patterned module was less than that of continuous patterned module. When the cells of DMP module correspond to different pattern shading, the current and power of module were limited by the most shaded cell, with the lowest percentage values of 53% and 49% in this paper. Inhomogeneous pattern distribution caused additional power loss (e.g., measured 7.74% in our work) and local temperature rise for modules with same shading area. To reduce losses, the principle of using the smallest possible dot size and configuring the dot-matrix evenly was suggested to designers.

CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN MODEL FOR MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT OF HIGH-RISE RESIDENTIAL STRATA

Abstract. Due to urban regions' lack of land for housing and infrastructure development, multi-level (vertical) constructions have developed rapidly. Massive developments and integration of high-rise buildings and structures, such as multi-story houses and apartments, are now prevalent in Malaysia. When it comes to the housing industry, preventive maintenance is critical because it helps individuals maintain their daily routines while also enhancing the productivity of activities in and around their residences. Therefore, the primary focus of this research is to review the temporal strata maintenance issues, build a conceptual domain model for maintenance procedures of residential strata in Malaysia, and link it with existing Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) packages. Furthermore, a Unified Modeling Language (UML) model for this LADM extension was created and is presented here on a conceptual level. This conceptual domain model for maintaining high-rise residential strata is designed by identifying the actors, classes, and their relationships derived from literature review, then created in the Enterprise Architect software. This conceptual domain model can further be used to develop maintenance management databases and software, which are nowadays essential for effective strata maintenance management.

The effect of local climatic conditions on the building integration of photovoltaics

The current work reports on the effect of local climatic conditions on electricity generation of typical building integrated photovoltaic systems (BIPVs). Three different climates of a) semi-continental with increased heating needs, b) Mediterranean with moderate heating and cooling needs and c) hot desert with high cooling needs are considered for BIPV systems. The evaluation of the BIPV electricity generation was done through validated TRNSYS simulations. The findings show that local climatic conditions influence the BIPV electricity generation due mainly to the temperature effect and the different interaction of the solar radiation components with the PV building integration.

Towards integration of smart and resilient city: literature review

Smart and resilient cities are on the same path to long-term sustainability and need the creation of an ecosystem that can withstand an increasing number of hazards in the future. One of the primary goals of the smart city movement was to address many issues that have arisen as a result of growing urbanization, including the scarcity of energy, traffic congestion, and pollution. The way urban dwellers live, work, and travel due to more often natural disasters and political issues is changing, and this has an impact on the economy and business models, forming a new trend in urban studies. Smart cities play a critical role in the worldwide fight against Covid-19 in terms of tracking and tracing instances of coronavirus using smart technologies. The integration of smart buildings into a smart city also plays an important role in this scenario, providing advanced infrastructure and greater comfort for their residents as well as improved safety control, increased energy efficiency, accessibility to services, and overall satisfaction with a higher quality of life. The findings of this study are based on the review of papers selected from high-impact research journals, as well as an analysis of the most important industry tendencies and widely referenced literature on smart cities and resilient cities. As a result, this study examines the concepts of smart and resilient cities, as well as the relationship between smart city technologies, and resilient city indicators; the impact of technologies applicable in different smart city domains on city resilience is discussed. Finally, the conclusions on how proposed integration toward smart and resilient cities could be implemented for future cities’ development are presented.

Comparative Analysis between different types of Responsive Design Approach: (Applicability to Use in Different Climatic Regions in Egypt)

Building and environment integration are necessary to be enabled, and advanced systems must work together to deliver optimal performance in terms of energy comfort and health. Above all, the area where building technology and services overlap, i.e. responsive building components, has great potential to realize the next step in energy efficiency by realizing comfortable indoor and outdoor environments in unprecedented ways. Recent studies have shown that an important reason for introducing new methods as population density increases is to reduce environmental damage. Energy consumption in the built environment accounts for approximately 40% of final energy consumption. In addition, external factors that affect building performance are analyzed, such s Overall building impact, energy consumption, pollution, and climate change. To achieve sustainability, it is proposed to use and implement the latest in smart materials and responsive system technology. The results of the dynamic thermal behavior analyze performed in the Building Concepts building simulation tool are then translated into energy, sustainability, and cost performance indicators, allowing the user to generate information based on the most relevant factors. This paper, therefore sheds light on new design and construction methods that enable buildings to interact with their external environment and achieve architectural responses to surrounding variables. This study aims to clarify the importance of responsive architecture to improve the built environment and the appropriate type of envelope based on climate data, applicable to different climatic regions of Egypt. The results confirm that implementing responsive envelopes has a positive impact on improving performance.

A data collection and supplementary control platform of a modern building for smart energy applications

This paper presents the design and applications of a data collection and supplementary control platform developed for energy-related applications of a modern office building. The challenges and possibilities of such a platform are discussed. The developed platform needed to aggregate and utilize available data and controls in buildings. The platform comprises a data collector at the edge for collecting, filtering and buffering data and for rapid control actions, and an IoT platform at the back end for visualizations and slow responses of energy management. Data is collected from internal (e.g., building automation and smart metering) and external (e.g., weather and market services) sources. The unique features of the platform include support for heterogeneous nature of the data sources and high volume and time resolution of data. The applications developed prove the applicability of the platform: energy and power quality analysis using machine learning, power peak management, blockchain for energy trading, and dashboards for energy information visualization for users of the building. The platform allows comprehensive and reliable data collection and more sophisticated integration of buildings in smart grids, e.g., ancillary service markets. The platform has also been deployed in a microgrid environment. Furthermore, the paper offers valuable experiences and lessons learned if planning to realize a smart building.

Evaluating the PV system expansion potential of existing integrated energy parks: A case study in North China

Industrial parks, distributed widely and with high energy consumption, show the demand for and provide favorable conditions of application of photovoltaic(PV) systems in a large-scale. Innovative PV technology allows more building integration options, bringing new opportunities for energy conservation.In the study, an evaluation framework was constructed in order to evaluate the expansion potential of PV systems. Taking the green integrated energy park in North China as an example, the construction and energy supply–demand data were reviewed.The scalable area of PV, the application effect of varied PV technologies and the impact on pollutant emission reduction were quantitatively analyzed. The roofs, facades and sites in the park were divided into seven types, These are then simulated to deploy mono c-Si modules, poly c-Si modules, CdTe film modules and CIGS film modules to obtain the best solutions by comparison. The results shows that the PV expansion of the park has significantly increased the power generation. The proportion of the energy supply meeting the overall energy demand increased from 4.3 % to 25.9 %. The wall of the production area where CdTe standard film modules were deployed is the place with the highest PV potential, followed by the parking shed and other sites. The deployment of diverse PV modules controlled the economic cost. The power generation trend also would better matches the hourly load of the park's power consumption, which can cover the sub item power consumption of the park. After the PV expansion, CO2 emissions would be reduced by 4757.8 t per year. Based on the results, the correlation change characteristics and the influences of PV available area, PV capacity and power generation index are discussed. Considering the declining PV cost and the demonstrative nature of the case Park, the above results can guide the industrial parks to improve the utilization level of renewable energy and promote the realization of carbon emission reduction targets.