Residential Building Envelope Alternatives with Equivalent Cost (original) (raw)
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Sustainability, 2019
Expectations of traditional and contemporary buildings are different in terms of thermal comfort. Traditional buildings mostly achieve comfort through passive means, without HVAC support, but old levels of thermal satisfaction do not meet today's expectations, although their passive thermal performances are notable for contemporary building designs. In this regard, the current study tries to investigate the possibility of comparing traditional and contemporary buildings' construction techniques to achieve thermal comfort from an architectural point of view. In other words, is it possible to achieve passive building design by considering vernacular architecture principals as a reference? Likewise, how well can architects define insulation layers in contemporary construction surfaces in hot and humid climates? To this end, a dynamic, numerical, thermal calculation case study has been modeled in Famagusta, Northern Cyprus, to answer the above-mentioned questions. A mixed-use mode benefitting free-run periods is proposed and compared with a mode providing 24 hours of airconditioning in different scenarios using the same initial settings. Thus, different floor-to-ceiling heights, insulation placements and indoor conditions have been tested separately in both winter and summer periods. The results show that thermal comfort can be achieved in free-run periods only during a limited percentage of the year. Furthermore, although increasing building heights may lead to a rise in the free-run periods, in contemporary buildings it increases the total energy usage of the buildings between 6% and 9% in the mixed mode. Therefore, vernacular architecture strategies are proper in their own context. However, this energy usage can still be controlled and optimized by such considerations as insulation material placement. In this regard, the best envelope properties for different building functions are proposed for application in hot and humid climates.
This paper describes the impact of alternative building material envelope systems on the overall thermal performance of five selected residences in Civano; a residential development in Tucson, Arizona. These systems included adobe, Integra block, strawbale, metal stud framing with rigid insulation (Heydon system) and structurally insulated panels (SIPs). After thorough on-site investigation and data collection by the House Energy Doctor (HED) team, the information, along with regional weather data, were input into the CalPas3 energy simulation software for thermal performance evaluation. While all of the five homes studied outperformed the average for Tucson home heating and cooling energy use and were within compliance with the 1995 Model Energy Code (MEC), three of the homes were found to exceed the energy cost per square foot source consumption guidelines required under the 1997 sustainable energy standards (SES). It was also determined that at least in the cases studied, the per...
Studies into structural and thermal properties of building envelope materials
Energy Procedia, 2017
District heating networks are commonly addressed in the literature as one of the most effective solutions for decreasing the greenhouse gas emissions from the building sector. These systems require high investments which are returned through the heat sales. Due to the changed climate conditions and building renovation policies, heat demand in the future could decrease, prolonging the investment return period. The main scope of this paper is to assess the feasibility of using the heat demand-outdoor temperature function for heat demand forecast. The district of Alvalade, located in Lisbon (Portugal), was used as a case study. The district is consisted of 665 buildings that vary in both construction period and typology. Three weather scenarios (low, medium, high) and three district renovation scenarios were developed (shallow, intermediate, deep). To estimate the error, obtained heat demand values were compared with results from a dynamic heat demand model, previously developed and validated by the authors. The results showed that when only weather change is considered, the margin of error could be acceptable for some applications (the error in annual demand was lower than 20% for all weather scenarios considered). However, after introducing renovation scenarios, the error value increased up to 59.5% (depending on the weather and renovation scenarios combination considered). The value of slope coefficient increased on average within the range of 3.8% up to 8% per decade, that corresponds to the decrease in the number of heating hours of 22-139h during the heating season (depending on the combination of weather and renovation scenarios considered). On the other hand, function intercept increased for 7.8-12.7% per decade (depending on the coupled scenarios). The values suggested could be used to modify the function parameters for the scenarios considered, and improve the accuracy of heat demand estimations.
Thermal Performance of Building Envelope
International Journal of Engineering Research and, 2020
In the era of raising environmental problems, built structures are considered as one of the main energy consuming entities which are ultimately responsible for environmental degradation. To handle the issue it is important to deal with building's energy demand which is mainly due to extreme weather conditions. Building envelope is the first to encounter with weather thus it plays a major role in deciding building's energy demand. This paper deals with the improvement of thermal performance of Building Envelope according to climate, indices and local solar time of region .This paper also focus on new facades technologies which lower down the building's energy demand with better insulation. To achieve this goal an integrated approach is required which comprise techniques, technologies, architectural innovation all together. These facades also have benefits other than energy saving. Numerous technologies are being developed to generate energy also.
Journal of Energy Storage, 2021
Recently, a numerous number of houses has been built using AAC materials, which consume the most amount of energy in the building sector by Heating, ventilation, and airconditioning (HVAC) systems. Thus, the most significant factor affecting the energy consumed by HVAC systems is the materials used in the building. Building models are important tools in determining the energy efficiency of buildings. Numerous strategies have been established to construct building models, such as the weight, gray, and black boxes, as well as hybrid models. Hybrid models have not been researched extensively, although they provide a reasonable representation of actual indoor conditions. Therefore, this study employs a hybrid calculation model for the analysis of physical and empirical correlations to evaluate thermal comfort in buildings, which reflects their energy consumption. The residential load factor (RLF) technique is adopted owing to its systematic organization and ease of use, which is achieved by dividing the model into submodels. The model is verified and validated by drawing a comparison with field measurements and the output obtained from ANSYS software. The actual field measurements and ANSYS outputs match the outputs of the proposed model; the results show small residual errors, indicating a well-defined model structure. The cost and energy savings of vernacular buildings and autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) (or low-cost) buildings have been highly debated in Basra city. Models of these two different building materials are simulated within the MATLAB/Simulink environment. Their results indicate that the vernacular building has the highest energy saving potential up to 47.83% over 24 h a day. These results provide an excellent argument to realize the benefits of vernacular buildings by reducing the dependency on powered cooling.
Environmental and Energy-Efficiency Considerations for Selecting Building Envelopes
Sustainability
Life cycle assessments in the construction industry reveal that 70–80% of all CO2 emissions occur precisely at the stage of material production (stages A1–A3 of the life cycle). Therefore, not only does the strength and thermal properties of the material selected for construction have major importance, but also the environmental impact of the material and the amount of energy spent to extract, manufacture and transport the materials. The paper presents the thermal calculations for envelope structures, assessing their environmental impact with respect to three parameters: carbon dioxide emissions, total energy consumption and amount of waste generated during material production. The research method used was an analysis of documents from real manufacturers and calculations of the main environmental parameters. Our investigation has led us to conclude that the largest amount of carbon dioxide emissions is produced by structures containing reinforced concrete, since the weight fraction ...
Energy Performance Analysis of Building Envelopes
Journal of Engineering, Project, and Production Management, 2021
The building sector has a high level of energy consumption caused mainly by the buildings heating and cooling energy demands to satisfy indoor comfort requirements. Reducing both the amount of energy consumed and the life cycle cost is a main challenge for the construction of buildings. It is evident that sustainable materials have low environmental impacts and need low consumption of energetic resources in addition to their durability and recyclability. Therefore, this research aims to test different sustainable materials available in Egypt for the construction of building envelopes that include local stones “Marble and Limestone” and insulation materials “Polyurethane- expanded and Extruded polystyrene (XPS) foam” in order to achieve savings in energy and total life cycle cost. The simulation tests were conducted through Design Builder software. The results aim to provide solutions for building designers to achieve energy-efficiency and costeffective design. The proposed alternati...
Energies
The building envelope is critical to reducing operational energy in residential buildings. Under moderate climates, as in South-Western Europe (Portugal), thermal operational energy may be substantially reduced with an adequate building envelope selection at the design stage; therefore, it is crucial to assess the trade-offs between operational and embodied impacts. In this work, the environmental influence of building envelope construction with varying thermal performance were assessed for a South-Western European house under two operational patterns using life-cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. Five insulation thickness levels (0–12 cm), four total ventilation levels (0.3–1.2 ac/h), three exterior wall alternatives (double brick, concrete, and wood walls), and six insulation materials were studied. Insulation thickness tipping-points were identified for alternative operational patterns and wall envelopes, considering six environmental impact categories. Life-cycle results show th...
Thermal Insulation of Building Envelope for Ecological Conservation
2021
Sustainability has been a rising concern for facility projects since the early 1990s. It is conscious that in terms of carbon emissions, energy usage, water use, utilisation of raw materials, waste production and many other factors, construction and operation of buildings have enormous direct and indirect environmental consequences. Increased economy and population will create more and more challenges for the design, construction and operational community to fulfil the new requirements for infrastructure that are affordable, safe, resilient and sustainable while reducing their environmental impact. The building envelope's key feature is to offer shelter, safety, solar and thermal control, control of moisture, control of indoor air quality, access to sunshine, and outdoor views, fire resistance, acoustics, cost-effectiveness, and aesthetics. This study seeks to promote awareness on the energy friendly design strategies which economically minimize operational expenditure, while enhancing comfort of the occupants in the building. This work would allow architects, engineers and builders to choose the most efficient or climate-reactive envelope alternative in order to improve thermal environment efficiency of the construction design being proposed.