Conventional Building Research Articles

Comparative study on the behaviour of conventional and pre-engineered buildings provided with different types of bracing

Comparative study on the behaviour of conventional and pre-engineered buildings provided with different types of bracing

Assessing the thermal performance of upcycled shipping container as a sustainable building material in a Warm humid climate

The current trends in the construction sector are responsible for majority of the CO2 emissions in India. The sustainable methods to reduce the CO2 emissions should include not just recycling but also upcycling the materials, for instance – shipping containers. Despite the industry’s best efforts to minimize waste generation, millions of shipping containers end up as scrap materials, every year. This phenomenon can be changed effectively by reusing the scrap materials as alternate building materials. The trend of reusing the shipping containers as building materials is at its peak in Western countries, while in India, it is still in a nascent stage. The aim of the current research paper is to evaluate and assess the thermal performance of upcycled shipping containers as a building material in warm humid climatic condition. This research includes a review of literature about the strengths and weaknesses of the shipping containers as a building material; it also compares and evaluates the thermal performance of uninsulated container buildings with base case conventional building and the insulated container building through Opaque simulation method. The results were obtained by comparing and assessing the thermal performance and cost of various insulating materials for a container building. The study outcomes greatly help the architects to reuse the shipping containers as a sustainable alternative building material in warm humid regions.

Energy saving potential of screen walls in high-rise residential buildings in hot and humid climates

About 33% of the total energy produced, is consumed by the building sector. Especially, 75% of the energy gets utilized by the residential buildings within the building sector. The increased usage of air conditioning systems to cool the indoor environment in hot-humid climatic regions increases the energy requirements of residential buildings. To be specific, high-rise residential buildings are known to be highly energy intensive. It is possible to mitigate the heat transfer into the indoor environment in high-rise residential buildings by shading the opaque facades. Since mutual shading or shading by adjacent building may not be possible at all times for high-rise residential buildings, screen wall can be used to shade the buildings to reduce its energy requirements and provide thermal comfort for the occupants in the indoor environment. In this background, the aim of the current research work is to find out the embodied energy, involved in the implementation of screen wall, and its effectiveness in reducing the operational energy requirements for space cooling in high-rise residential buildings. The option of screen wall and its benefits over conventional building envelope are emphasized in this study through a simulation study. A bedroom in a high-rise residential building in Chennai was chosen for conducting the detailed analysis and the analysis was carried through simulation for one year. The research design includes the modelling of the selected residential building in IES-VE software and validating the results through field measurements. Energy saving analysis was conducted through simulation to determine the energy saved in space cooling by shading the opaque façades with screen wall. For one year, 7.88MWh energy reduction was attained from the installation of screen wall over opaque surfaces at the set indoor temperature i.e., 27°C for 8 hours during night time using air-conditioning. The embodied energy was calculated for the installation of metal sheet over opaque façade and for shading as screen wall and the outcomes were compared with the energy savings in space cooling with the application of screen wall. The payback period for the embodied energy of the screen wall installation was determined in terms of operational energy saved in space cooling through screen walls. The analysis revealed that the payback period is one year. Due to COVID-19 pandemic, people staying at indoors in residential buildings has increased up to 90% during day time, which in turn results in high energy demand. Screen wall acts as a skin for the buildings and shade entirely from the sun. It helps in reducing the energy usage for space cooling in residential buildings, which eventually reduces the carbon footprint.

Sustainable Building and Its Comparative Analysis with Conventional Building

Sustainable Building and Its Comparative Analysis with Conventional Building

Analysis of the Conventional Steel Building and Pre-Engineered Building Structures for Various Bay Lengths

Abstract: Comparing PEB structures to conventional structures is the main goal of this study. Pre Engineered Buildings (PEB) are constructions that are manufactured and assembled on site. This study assesses both traditional steel structures and preengineered structures. Usually, industrial buildings are built using this kind of structural principle. An industrial structure with 5 and 6 m-long bays is under consideration. STAAD PRO software is used for structure analysis. In this study, the maximum reaction, maximum stress analysis, and maximum axial force results for conventional steel structures and pre-engineered structures with bay lengths of 5 and 6 metres are examined and compared. We consequently conclude that PEB is preferable to CSB.

Influence of cooling surface area on indoor air and surface heat transfer characteristics of a thermally activated building system in warm and humid zones: An Experimental study

Several alternatives have been introduced in recent years to enhance the thermal comfort levels within buildings. Thermally Activated Building Systems (TABS), one of the above alternatives, have gained interest because of the huge benefits this technology offers the building sector. This type of system consists of encapsulated pipes within the building structure to control the surface temperature. This study explores the thermal behavior of the cooling surface and fluctuations in indoor air temperature (IAT) of TABS under various cooling scenarios. Only limited number of investigations has been carried out to study the heat transfer behavior of TABS. Hence, the building indoor thermal properties such as air temperature, surface temperature and rate of heat transfer between the indoor air and inner surface of the TABS has been evaluated experimentally by enhancing the cooling surface area. Moreover the results were compared with the conventional building (no cooling provides). The thermal energy stored in the TABS is significantly removed by the increase in cooling surface area, resulting in a 2°C decrease in the average indoor air temperature. The average heat gain of all wall surfaces in the case of no cooling (WOC) ranges from −3 to 13 W/m2. The amount of heat gain on the walls was not significantly affected by only roof and floor cooling (R+F) activities. Moreover, it ranged from −2 to 24 W/m2 in all surface cooling (ASC) scenarios. As a result, there was additional surface cooling, which increased surface heat gain and indoor cooling capacity.

A guided approach for utilizing concrete robotic 3D printing for the architecture, engineering, and construction industry

The emerging field of robotic 3D printing offers practical alternatives to conventional building methods that are currently used in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry. Robotic 3D printing has many advantages over the conventional construction as it reduces human error, is relatively inexpensive, and opens the door to the creative complex designs while reducing the amount of expertise required to complete the construction process. At present, there is a shortage of resources offering guidance on how to utilize the available technology. Thus, it is often difficult for researchers and practitioners alike to find the right information and make informed decisions relative to their specific applications. In this paper, we provide such a resource by gathering data from previously constructed projects in the form of a categorical study, which paves the way for accessing the most recent information regarding the robotic 3D printing technology of interest. We illustrate the latest methods and techniques used in the field and describe the hardware used. We also use the resulting classification methods to present a decision-making workflow to streamline the process of selecting the most appropriate approach. We also examined and performed a detailed analysis on three case studies of prominent buildings that have been constructed using 3D printing technology. The categorical parameters were selected carefully to form a clear, informative distinction between the buildings. Printing method and motion type were the most important parameters when it comes to robotic 3D printing. A new database was created and demonstrated to elucidate the types of the additive manufacturing that can be used. By analyzing the data, we hope to facilitate the development of new structures as they relate to 3D printing in the AEC industry.

Comparative analysis of residential building envelopes newly implementing the building insulation code in Damascus

The selection of envelope construction technique has the highest impact on sustaining indoor thermal comfort while reducing energy consumed for heating and cooling. Numerous insulation codes are implemented worldwide to improve building envelope modification. Each country has set envelope transmittances criteria, materials, techniques and simulation tools differently based on its climate zones and construction sector adaptability. The housing sector in Syria is the focus of energy conservation being responsible of half of the energy consumption in the country. Syrian post-conflict residential buildings are challenged by the new implementation of Building Insulation Code. This code has opted for a “fabric first” dwellings design approach with mandatory U-value standards. Hence, like many energy-related regulations in Syria it has been dropped because the construction sector has not been able to cope with them, forced by speculators to keep costs low. Another reason is that building thermal performance modeling has not been used to comply with the new insulation code in Syria. The research aims to examine the potential relevance of the Insulation Code in informing post-war social housing envelope structures in Damascus. It evaluates compliant building envelope structures compared to conventional building in terms of transmittance properties, simulated thermal loads (IESVE) and cost–energy trade-off. The research findings reveal an improvement in U-values of 78.5%, 31.5%, 92.7% and 90.2% achieved in compliant cases 1, 3, 4 and 5, respectively, compared to conventional case-2. The simulation demonstrated best improvement in total heating loads up to 85% achieved in case-4. Hence, the improved U-value lead to improvement in winter heating loads but overheating in summertime. The simulation was found useful but not enough to optimize envelope performance through interdisciplinary decision that contributes positively to Syrian post-war circumstances. The cost analysis found an increase in wall initial construction costs, amounting to 36.4%, 27.3%, 54.6% and 45.5% in cases 1, 3, 4 and 5 with long payback periods. These findings spark a new agenda for Insulation Code improvement. The proposed simplified criteria offer practitioners more understanding to customize their own list of envelope structure parameters based on the climatic zone resulting in a shift in envelope selection from input to a more output oriented.

Thermal energy performance of compressed earth building in two different cities in Moroccan semi-arid climate

The assessment of the thermal energy performance of earth-based buildings with respect to the semi-arid Mediterranean climate of Morocco is scarce, even if the country is historically known for its earthen dwellings. According to this need, this work aims to understand and evaluate the indoor thermal comfort and energy performances of passive building in two different locations. We have used EnergyPlus modeling tool and in addition, the monitored ten-day indoor temperatures in two different thermal zones in the test prototype to justify the empirical validation of Building Energy Model. The findings demonstrate, the use of compressed earth blocks coupled with passive design strategies provides better comfort and great sustainability. Thus, the summer discomfort hours are reduced about 12% for both cities compared to conventional building. However, the combination of semi-arid climate-responsive passive design has allowed to reach a thermal energy intensity reduction difference from 20 to 65 kWh.m−2. y−1.

Innovative Energy-Efficient Prefabricated Movable Buildings for Smart/Co-Working: Performance Assessment upon Varying Building Configurations

Worldwide, smart/co-working spaces are growing significantly, and prefabricated movable buildings for such an application could (i) save energy, CO2 emissions, and costs; (ii) enhance the worker’s perceived sense of surroundings; and (iii) support the rebirth of small villages with high regenerative potential. Innovative prefabricated movable building configurations to be used as an office for smart/co-working by a maximum of 6 persons have been designed and analyzed based on simulation data. In particular, 10 case studies corresponding to building configurations differing in terms of innovative energy-efficient measures related to the building envelope (smart windows operated under various control logics) and the energy systems serving the building (photovoltaic panels, small wind turbines, and electric storages) have been modeled and simulated by applying detailed dynamic simulation models via the simulation software TRNSYS. The performance of the 10 case studies has been compared from energy, environmental, and economic points of view with respect to a baseline system characterized by conventional building envelope and energy systems, with the aim of assessing the proposed measures and identifying the most efficient configuration. The simulation results highlighted that: (i) all the proposed alternative configurations allow to save primary energy (from 10.3% up to 100%), equivalent CO2 emissions(from 10.3% up to 100%), and operating costs (from 8.5% up to 100%) with respect to the baseline building; (ii) the building configurations including the smart windows only are not economically feasible in terms of simple pay-back (SPB) period, while the building configurations equipped with photovoltaic panels and/or electric storages and/or wind turbine represent a suitable investment thanks to an SPB lower than 15.2 years; (iii) a stand-alone building configuration for smart/co-working with energy demands totally covered by means of renewable sources can be obtained by combining smart windows, photovoltaic panels, electric storages and wind turbine.

Well-being as a tool to improve productivity in existing office space: Case study in Alexandria, Egypt

Background: The green building industry has significantly impacted the construction market, providing various sustainable solutions for the community. However, conventional green building standards have yet to adequately address occupant health and well-being, leading to challenges with performance. This has caused many businesses to take note of the latest report from the Bureau of Labour Statistics, which indicated that productivity in the US has dropped by the sharpest level since the 1940s [1]. Addressing these issues, organisations like International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) developed WELL Building Rating System (WELL), prioritising occupant health and well-being as critical components for improving performance and avoiding potential vulnerabilities brought about by sickness or pandemics. For this reason, this study will explore how to improve employee productivity within office buildings by bettering their overall health and well-being. Methods: The methodology is designed to collect data from traditional office design, new trended successful office designs, and the WELL Building Rating System to understand healthy building design. Additionally, using DesignBuilder computer software simulates natural daylight, ventilation, and thermal heat gain in the case study to compare implementation results to the base case result. Results: Showing thermal comfort, ventilation, and natural daylight significantly influence employees’ productivity. Implementing conducted design features from WELL achieved an average of 20.2%-35.6% decrease in thermal gain throughout the year, a 20% increase in airflow, an average 2.4%-6.5% decrease in Air temperature, enhanced temperature distribution by 7%, and direct sunlight minimum reduction by 9% in Winter and maximum 21.9% in Spring. Conclusion: Our research analysed that new design features in famous office buildings positively impact employee productivity. We particularly examined the features outlined by WELL Building Rating System to identify the most influential factors affecting occupant productivity. The results of this study informed recommendations for enhancing productivity in existing office buildings in Alexandria, Egypt.

Carbon Life Cycle Assessment and Costing of Building Integrated Photovoltaic Systems for Deep Low-Carbon Renovation

Building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) systems can achieve high yields through high percentages of building envelope surface coverage associated with material savings by substituting conventional building envelope components and avoiding land-use change to install open-land PV installations. This article discusses the life cycle assessment (LCA) and the life cycle costing (LCC) of BIPV systems in timber-hybrid building extensions and envelope renovation systems of three exemplary buildings in the Republic of Korea: apartment, mixed-use commercial/industrial, and low-rise multi-unit residential. The BIPV system’s electricity production was quantified with simulation tools. Minimum and average carbon LCAs were calculated using a global product inventory database for 50 years. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission savings by substituting conventional energy supplies were calculated based on the associated primary energy demands. LCC calculations were based on international datasets for BIPV LCC for 25 and 50 years. As a result, the BIPV system-associated GHG emissions can be decreased by up to 30% with a payback time of 12 (apartment) to 41 (mixed-use building) years for buildings with full PV coverage. The positive cumulative net present value (NPV) for both LCC scenarios encourages economic investments in building renovations with BIPV systems.

Study on properties of rigid polyurethane foam as a thermal building insulator at varied mixing conditions

The concept of zero-energy building is one of the promising ways to improve energy efficiency, resulting in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The use of rigid polyurethane foam (RPUF) has been widely used as insulation material in building panels because of its excellent properties including light-weight, durability, and lower thermal conductivity. This study aimed to determine the effect of mixing conditions on the production of RPUF at varied mixing speeds (300, 500, 1000 rpm) corresponding to its density, mechanical, and insulation properties. It was observed that the well-defined physical structure of RPUF was obtained at the minimum mixing speed of 500 rpm. The foam density changed with the increasing mixing speed, from 39.8 kg/m3 at 500 rpm to 51.30 kg/m3 at 1000 rpm. This might be because of the possible loss of the blowing agent due to excessive mixing speed as noted by the constrained foam expansion and the shorter time for the free-rise process. The thermal insulation property of obtained RPUF was significantly lower than that of conventional building materials like concrete. This research is one of the key technologies to reduce the energy consumption for heating-cooling buildings and thus create a potential strategy for climate change mitigation.

Experimental investigation on sun-dried bricks with addition of lignin

Brick is one of the oldest building material used for masonry works in construction. A major problem that exist in construction field is extinction of traditional as well as conventional building materials like bricks, cement, etc. And also achieving inadequate strength in building due to reduced usage of natural raw materials. The abundant availability of bio-wastes and their impacts on the environment is the major problem faced in recent times. Coconut husk is an agricultural & coir industrial waste present in abundant quantity, which is being dumped on the roadside and disposed by incineration process. This leads to environmental pollution due to emission of CO2 during incineration of coconut husk. This project attempts to provide an alternative for the above issues. It carry out an experimental study to extract suitable product from organic waste and effective addition of this product to existing building materials. This will help in improving the strength, durability and quality of the material. And also the experiments are carried out to study the properties of the material. The expected inference from this project is improvement of compressive strength of the unburnt bricks with the addition of the tissue (lignin) that has been extracted from the coir pith. The project deals with extraction process of lignin from coconut husk in an inexpensive way and addition of the lignin to bricks and comparison of properties to that of conventional bricks and obtained unburnt clay bricks.

FEASIBILITY OF PREFABRICATED BUILDING STRUCTURES IN BHUTAN

Studies and research on the arena of prefabrication have prodigiously reported faster project delivery, improved quality and safer working conditions. More prominently, reduction in waste materials at project sites without any implications to environmental aspects has been a major breakthrough. Prefabricated building structures have been progressively recognized as a substitute to the conventional methods of construction at a rapid rate, however, there is a knowledge vacuum and inadequate data on the adoption of prefabrication in Bhutan. Hence, in the current study, the feasibility of Prefabricated Buildings in Bhutan with a case study was carried out. The study focused on the benefits, constraints and way forward of prefabrication works in Bhutan through field survey and questionnaire survey. In addition, economic, environmental assessments and insulation performance were carried on a Pre-Engineered building with prefabricated materials and subsequently compared to a conventional building. From the study, the major benefit found to be ease of construction whereas the constraints pertaining to the design and planning phase of the project were deemed to be the major constraint. In particular for prefabricated construction, the cost was found to be 24.18% higher but the duration of the project can be reduced by 25-31% and the environmental impact was found to be 20.81% less than for the conventional building. Therefore, adopting prefabricated construction will depend on the requirements of a particular project, the availability of funds and environmental standards to be followed. However, the use and acceptance of prefabrication in the construction industry can be improved by better advocacy and public awareness.

Quantification of urban mitigation potentials - coping with data heterogeneity

Cities are at the forefront of European and international climate action. However, in many cities, the ever-growing urban population is putting pressure on settlement and infrastructure development, increasing attention to urban planning, infrastructure and buildings. This paper introduces a set of quantification approaches, capturing impacts of urban planning measures in three fields of action: sustainable building, transport and redensification. The quantification approaches have been developed to account for different levels of data availability, thus providing users with quantification approaches that are applicable across cities. The mitigation potentials of various measures such as a modal shift, the substitution of building materials with wood, and different redensification scenarios were calculated. The substitution of conventional building materials with wood was analyzed as having a high mitigation potential. Building construction, in combination with urban planning and design, are key drivers for mitigating climate change in cities. Given the data heterogeneity among cities, mixed quantification approaches could be defined and the measures and policy areas with the greatest climate mitigation potential identified.

Integrated optimization in operations control and systems design for carbon emission reduction in building electrification with distributed energy resources

Building electrification with distributed energy resources (DERs) is a promising strategy to decarbonize the building sector. Considering the inter-dependencies between operations control and systems design, integrating technology operations control optimization with DERs investment optimization can cost-effectively enhance such building decarbonization opportunities. This study proposes a multi-timescale integrated optimization framework to simultaneously optimize the design and control of DERs and electrification technologies for buildings. A novel building operational performance prediction model based on deep learning is developed to approximate and replace the computationally expensive control optimization. This helps resolve the challenging, computationally intractable multi-timescale integrated design and control optimization problem. Applying the proposed framework to a residential building, our results demonstrate its effectiveness in cost-efficient carbon emissions reduction. With integrated design and control optimization for DERs and electric building energy systems, the proposed framework reduces operational carbon emissions by 80% and total costs by 2.7% compared to a base case, which uses typical conventional building energy systems without DERs and control/design optimization. Separate optimization of operations control and system design cannot achieve such performance. Further scenario analyses indicate that as power grids become cleaner, the reliance on DERs can be alleviated but remain important in building carbon emission reduction under 2050 power grid scenario. Overall, as our results demonstrate, it is possible to reduce building operational carbon emissions simultaneously with net electrical load: compared to the base case, the proposed framework helps reduce the carbon emission by 80% while driving down the net electrical load from 44.1 to 19.3 kWh/m2/year.

Passive house: a practice of low carbon and sustainable development in china

The construction field plays an essential role in addressing global environmental issues regarding contaminants, natural resources, and energy efficiency. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the building industry produce a huge amount of global carbon emission with a percentage of 38 and this figure is growing each year. Previous studies have analyzed many factors that have a significant influence on the sustainable performance of building. Passive house is a promising type of construction project with superior energy efficiency and less emissions. The main objective of this study is to analyze the environmental sustainability of passive house compared with conventional buildings and present the development of passive house in China. This paper analyzes the characteristics of passive house in different regions according to the climate zoning of China. Results show that the passive house, as a sustainable building, has a promising trend. The outcome also indicates that China needs more mature technology and professional personnel to further promote the development of passive house.

Bio-based sandwich beams made of paper honeycomb cores and flax FRP facings: Flexural and shear characteristics

Sandwich composite panels have been used in construction as building envelopes and cladding systems. The sandwich composite used today are mainly made of conventional synthetic foam cores and synthetic fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) facings, typically made of glass or carbon fibers and synthetic polymers. With increasing environmental consciousness, it is important to develop sustainable building materials to replace conventional building materials with more sustainable materials such as bio-based fibers and polymers. There is lack of studies on sandwich composites made of bio-based materials for both core and facings. In this study, 18 sandwich beam specimens (1200 mm long and 100 mm wide) made of flax FRP facings and 75 mm thick paper honeycomb core were fabricated and tested under three-point bending. The parameters of the tests were facing thickness (1, 2 and 3 layers of flax FRP) and core types (hollow and foam-filled). It was found that the paper honeycomb has comparable performance with lighter weight to other synthetic counterparts and foam-filling was effective in improving the performance of the core and sandwich beams. In addition, as the nonlinear behavior of the specimens was evident, a new analytical model was developed based on the material nonlinearity of both facings and core materials to predict the test data and perform a parametric study. Overall, the bio-based sandwich system showed substantial potential to be used for building applications with much less environmental footprints in comparison with other synthetic counterparts.

Roadmap for the transition to biogenic building materials: A socio-technical analysis of barriers and drivers in the Danish construction industry

The threat of climate change and global resource scarcity has prompted changes in the way that goods are produced and consumed in the construction industry. An important way for the industry to contribute to the green transition is to substitute conventional building materials with biogenic materials that require less energy to produce and bind atmospheric carbon in their growth, thus effectively capturing and storing carbon inside the building stock. An increased use of biogenic materials not only necessitates new technical development but also major changes in existing production and consumption practices. While extant research has investigated barriers in relation to the uptake of low-carbon building materials, less attention has been placed on investigating the measures that support the transition to increased use of biogenic materials. Drawing on insights from socio-technical transition analysis, the paper explores barriers and drivers that influence the uptake and diffusion of biogenic materials in the Danish construction industry. Sixty distinct barriers are identified including cultural, infrastructural, technological, market, political, techno-scientific, and industrial network barriers. The study also identifies measures, which could contribute to an increased use of biogenic materials. These findings are combined in a roadmap for a transition towards an increased use of biogenic materials in the construction industry.