Search results for: building science

Authors: Yao Meng, Mahroo Eftekhari, Dennis Loveday

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Currently, there are two types of heating systems in Chinese residential buildings, with respect to the controllability of the heating system, one is an old heating system without any possibility of controlling room temperature and another is a new heating system that provides temperature control of individual rooms. This paper is aiming to evaluate the impact of potential variables on the energy performance of old and new buildings respectively in China, and to explore how the use of individual room temperature control would change occupants’ heating behaviour and thermal comfort in Chinese residential buildings and its impact on the building energy performance. In the study, two types of residential buildings have been chosen, the new building install personal control on the heating system, together with ‘pay for what you use’ tariffs. The old building comprised uncontrolled heating with payment based on floor area. The studies were carried out in each building, with a longitudinal monitoring of indoor air temperature, outdoor air temperature, window position. The occupants’ behaviour and thermal sensation were evaluated by questionnaires. Finally, use the simulated analytic method to identify the impact of influence variables on energy use for both types of buildings.

Keywords: residential buildings, China, design parameters, energy efficiency, simulation analytics method

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Authors: Naima Bilal

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The contemporary Anthropocene novel, with all the atrocities, man-made and inflicted by Nature (and Supernature), differs from the Horror novel in one main characteristic, that being naively lingering to hope and the notion that all evils, days and people come to an end. The current article explores the psychological dimensions of this optimistic ending that Climate fiction novelists uphold and how does this 'hope' functions as a bait for the reader to act. The primary sources for the research are The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, Parable of the Sower by Octivia Butller and Amtiv Ghosh’s Gun Island.

Keywords: hope in contemporary anthroprocene literature, Pakistani science fiction novels, science fiction as a remedy to contemporary climate problems, science the new religion

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Authors: Saou Mohamed Amine

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The construction industry has been identified as a user of substantial amount of materials and energy resources that has an enormous impact on environment. The energy efficient in refurbishment project is being considered as one of the approaches to achieve sustainability in construction industry. The increasing concern for environment has made building owners and designers to incorporate the energy efficiency features into their building projects.

Keywords: construction industry, design team attributes, energy efficient performance, refurbishment projects characteristics

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Authors: Dwi Retno Sri Ambarwati

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Recently, the traditional architecture were getting lost, replaced by modern architecture. The existence of many traditional houses often changing the function and change the values in an effort to adjust to the modern lifestyle, whereas the spiritual background of traditional architectural design is very specific and be the basis for consideration in the construction of the building, both in terms of determining the location of the building, the direction toward building, the spatial pattern and organization of space, zoning, hierarchical space, building form, ornamentation, the selection of building materials, and so on. The changes in function and form will transformed the spiritual values contained in it, because the architecture affects human behavior and reflects the culture. The traditional architecture views the architecture as a concept that has different tendencies in terms of orientation, shape, and attitude toward nature that tends to harmony with the social environment and local culture. The concept of the spirit of place made the architecture looks familiar, not arrogant and give a positive value to the surrounding environment. Every culture has a traditional architecture that full of spiritual values, although in the simplest form. Humans can learn about human values and local wisdom through the positive values that contained in traditional architecture, the desire to balance themselves with nature and the environment, not overbearing, strict adherence to the prevailing norms, openness in public life and intimacy family life that form a harmonious in life. The great and the wise value of traditional architecture should be revived in modern architecture that tends to ignore the spiritual values and more concerned with the functional and aesthetic pleasure, by combining the noble values of traditional architecture into modern architecture.

Keywords: architecture, combining noble values, local wisdom, traditional architecture

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Authors: Ghaleb Y. Abbasi, Sufyan Al-Mrayat

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This study examined the contribution of thirty-six factors to building construction project’s cost overrun in Jordan. A questionnaire was distributed to a random sample of 350 stakeholders comprised of owners, consultants, and contractors, of which 285 responded. SPSS analysis was conducted to identify the top five causes of cost overrun, which were a large number of variation orders, inadequate quantities provided in the contract, misunderstanding of the project plan, incomplete bid documents, and choosing the lowest price in the contract bidding. There was an agreement among the study participants in ranking the factors contributing to cost overrun, which indicated that these factors were very commonly encountered in most construction projects in Jordan. Thus, it is crucial to enhance the collaboration among the different project stakeholders to understand the project’s objectives and set a realistic plan that takes into consideration all the factors that might influence the project cost, which might eventually prevent cost overrun.

Keywords: cost, overrun, building construction projects, Jordan

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Authors: Stefano Sorace, Gloria Terenzi

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The study of a base isolation seismic retrofit solution for a reinforced concrete school building is presented in this paper. The building was assumed as a benchmark structure for a Research Project financed by the Italian Department of Civil Protection, and is representative of several similar public edifices designed with earlier Technical Standards editions, in Italy as well as in other earthquake-prone European countries. The structural characteristics of the building, and a synthesis of the investigation campaigns developed on it, are initially presented. The mechanical parameters, dimensions, locations and installation details of the base isolation system, incorporating double friction pendulum sliding bearings as protective devices, are then illustrated, along with the performance assessment analyses carried out in original and rehabilitated conditions according to a full non-linear dynamic approach. The results of the analyses show a remarkable enhancement of the seismic response capacities of the structure in base-isolated configuration. This allows reaching the high performance levels postulated in the rehabilitation design with notably lower costs and architectural intrusion as compared to traditional retrofit interventions designed for the same objectives.

Keywords: seismic retrofit, seismic assessment, r/c structures, school buildings, base isolation

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Authors: Nuruddeen Usman, Mohammad Sani

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The performance of project delivery methods has been an issue of concern to various stakeholders in the construction industry. The contracting system of project delivery is the traditional system used in the delivery of most public projects in Nigeria. The direct labor system is used most times as an alternative to the traditional system. There were so many complain about the performance of contracting system and the suitability of direct labor as an alternative to the delivery of public projects. Therefore, this paper is aimed at investigating the effect of project size on the project delivery methods in the completed public buildings. Questionnaires were self-administered to managerial staff in the study area and analyzed using descriptive statistics. The findings reveals that contracting system was choosing for large size building construction project delivery with higher frequency (F) of 40 (76.9%) against direct labor with 12 (23.1%). While the small size project, the result revealed a frequency (F) of 26 (50%) for contracting system and direct labor system respectively. Base on the research findings, the contracting system, was recommended for all sizes of building construction project delivery while direct labor system can only use as an alternative for small size building construction projects delivery.

Keywords: construction size, contracting system, direct labour, effect

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Authors: E. T. Svahn

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Knowledge about the factors that influence the exchange between research and society is of the utmost importance for developing collaboration between different actors, especially in future science policy development and the creation of support structures for researchers. Among other things, how researchers look at the surrounding open science policy environment and what conditions and attitudes they have for interacting with it. This paper examines the Finnish researchers' attitudes towards open science policies in 2020. Open science is an integrated part of researchers' daily lives and supports not only the effectiveness of research outputs but also the quality of research. Open science policy in ideal situation is seen as a supporting structure that enables the exchange between research and society, but in other situation, it can end up being red tape generating obstacles and hindering possibilities of making science in an efficient way. Results of this study were carried out through focus group interviews. This qualitative research method was selected because it aims to understand the phenomenon under study. In addition, focus group interviews produce diverse and rich material that would not be available with other research methods. Focus group interviews have well-established applications in social science, especially in understanding the perspectives and experiences of research subjects. In this study, focus groups were used in studying the mindset and actions of researchers. Each group's size was between 4-10 people, and the aim was to bring out different perspectives on the subject. The interviewer enabled the presentation of different perceptions and opinions, and the focus group interviews were recorded and written as text. The material was analysed using grounded theory method. The results are presented as thematic areas, theoretical model, and as direct quotations. Attitudes towards open science policy can vary greatly depending on the research area. This study shows that the open science policy demands in medicine, technology, and natural sciences compared to social sciences, educational sciences, and the humanities, varies somewhat. The variation in attitudes between different research areas can thus be largely explained by the fact that the research output and ethical code vary significantly between certain subjects. This study aims to increase understanding of the nuances to what extent open science policies should be tailored for different disciplines and research areas.

Keywords: focus group interview, grounded theory, open science policy, science policy

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Authors: Zhan Dong, Qiu Jianrong, Li Qinghui, Zhang Lei

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The quantity and quality of the papers published on sport science from 2001 to 2013 had been counted and analysed and compared with the papers published on the journal from 1990 to 2000. The result showed that: 1. In the sports medicine field, the proportion of basic/application was abnormal. Basic research was far more than the application research. The papers on researching of imitating altitude training was the main part. Gene research made great progress.The research on sport injury and medical supervision were lower and lower. Research on sports prescription had made much progress, especially in the patients of heart infarction. 2. In building up people’s health field, the research on the old people had been more and more compared with the 10 years before, but it was not enough. 3. In the field of sports psychology, the research on disable people had been more compared with the 10 years before. Solved the problem of the sportmen before the game. 4. In the field of sports biomechanics, it showed that methods had made great progress compared with the 10 years before. Sport biomechanics combined with sports medicine, helped the sportsmen in good condition in the game. 5. In the exercise training field, the experts pay more attention to the outstanding sportsmen, and the researches emphasized that biology knowledge is the main basic for them to the research.

Keywords: sport medicine, sport injury, medical supervision

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Authors: Hasan Coruk, Recep Cakir

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This study aimed at investigating the effect of multimedia containing ‘the structure and properties of matter’ unit on students’ academic achievement level and self-efficacy relating to science and technology course. The study used an experimental design with pre-test and post-test groups. The data collection tools were ‘Science and Technology Course Achievement Test’ and ‘Science and Technology Self-Efficacy Scale’. The sample of the study consisted of 8th grade students at a primary school in Tokat Province. The study was carried out with 42 students from two classes, 21 (8 males, 13 females) from experimental group and 21 (13 males and 8 females) from control group. The data were analyzed in SPSS.18 software. The findings of the study indicated that the use of multimedia increased the students’ academic achievement in science and technology course in comparison with traditional teaching methods. It was also determined that there was not a significant difference in students’ course-oriented self-efficacy levels regarding the two methods. Necessary and feasible suggestions were put forward for whom it concerns.

Keywords: multimedia learning, science and technology, the structure-properties of matter, self-efficacy, academic achievement

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Authors: Kishor Bhagwat, Gayatri Vyas

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Construction industry is earmarked with complex processes depending on the nature and scope of the project. In recent years, developments in this sector are remarkable and have resulted in both positive and negative impacts on the environment and human being. Sustainable construction can be looked upon as one of the solution to overcome the negative impacts since sustainable construction is a vast concept, which includes many parameters, and sometimes the use of multi-criteria decision making [MCDM] tools becomes necessary. The main objective of this study is to determine the weightage of sustainable building parameters with the help of MCDM tools. Questionnaire survey was conducted to examine the perspective of respondents on the importance of weights of the criterion, and the respondents were architects, green building consultants, and civil engineers. This paper presents an overview of research related to Indian and international green building rating systems and MCDM. The results depict that economy, environmental health, and safety, site selection, climatic condition, etc., are important parameters in sustainable construction.

Keywords: green building, sustainability, multi-criteria decision making method [MCDM], analytical hierarchy process [AHP], technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution [TOPSIS], entropy

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Authors: Elise Machline

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Policy instruments have been developed worldwide to reduce the energy demand of buildings. Two types of such instruments have been green building rating systems and energy efficiency standards for buildings -such as Green Star (Australia), LEED (United States, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), Energy Star (United States), and BREEAM (United Kingdom, Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method). The popularity of the idea of sustainable development has allowed the actors to consider the potential value generated by the environmental performance of buildings, labeled “green value” in the literature. Sustainable performances of buildings are expected to improve their attractiveness, increasing their value. A growing number of empirical studies demonstrate that green buildings yield rental/sale premia, as well as higher occupancy rates and thus higher asset values. The results suggest that green buildings are not affordable to all and that their construction tends to have a gentrifying effect. An increasing number of countries are institutionalizing green strategies for affordable housing. In that sense, making green buildings affordable to all will depend on government policies. That research aims to investigate whether green building fosters inequality in Israel, under the banner of sustainability. The method is comparison (of the market value). This method involves comparing the green buildings sale prices with non-certified buildings of the same type that have undergone recent transactions. The “market value” is deduced from those sources by analogy. The results show that, in Israel, green building projects are usually addressed to the middle to upper classes. The green apartment’s sale premium is about 19% (comparing to non-certified dwelling). There is a link between energy and/or environmental performance and the financial value of the dwellings. Moreover, price differential is much higher than the value of energy savings. This perpetuates socio-spatial and socio-economic inequality as well as ecological vulnerability for the poor and other socially marginal groups. Moreover, there are no green affordable housings and the authorities do not subsidy green building or retrofitting.

Keywords: green building, gentrification, social housing, green value, green building certification

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Authors: Ahmed A. Mohamed Aly

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Ground movements induced from excavations is a major cause of deformation and damage to the adjacent buildings and utilities. With the increasing rate of construction work in urban area, this problem is growing more significant and has become the cause of numerous legal disputes. This problem is investigated numerically in the present study using finite element method. Five-story reinforced concrete building rests on raft foundation is idealized as two dimensional model. The building is considered to be constructed adjacent to excavation affected by an adjacent excavation in medium sand. Excavation is supported using sheet pile wall. Two dimensional plane strain program PLAXIS is used in this study. 15 nodes triangular element is used to idealize soil with Mohr-Coulomb model. Five nodes isoperimetric beam element is used to idealize sheet pile and building. Interface element is used to represent the contact between beam element and soil. Two parameters were studied, the first is the foundation depth and the second is the building distance from the excavation. Nodal displacements and elements straining actions were obtained and studied from the analyzed finite element model results.

Keywords: excavation, relative distance, effective stresses, lateral deformation, relative depth

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Authors: Hsien-Te Lin

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The purpose of this paper is to introduce the BCFES (building carbon footprint evaluation system), which is a LCA (life cycle assessment) tool developed by the Low Carbon Building Alliance (LCBA) in Taiwan. A qualified BCFES for the building industry should fulfill the function of evaluating carbon footprint throughout all stages in the life cycle of building projects, including the production, transportation and manufacturing of materials, construction, daily energy usage, renovation and demolition. However, many existing BCFESs are too complicated and not very designer-friendly, creating obstacles in the implementation of carbon reduction policies. One of the greatest obstacle is the misapplication of the carbon footprint inventory standards of PAS2050 or ISO14067, which are designed for mass-produced goods rather than building projects. When these product-oriented rules are applied to building projects, one must compute a tremendous amount of data for raw materials and the transportation of construction equipment throughout the construction period based on purchasing lists and construction logs. This verification method is very cumbersome by nature and unhelpful to the promotion of low carbon design. With a view to provide an engineer-oriented BCFE with pre-diagnosis functions, a component input/output (I/O) database system and a scenario simulation method for building energy are proposed herein. Most existing BCFESs base their calculations on a product-oriented carbon database for raw materials like cement, steel, glass, and wood. However, data on raw materials is meaningless for the purpose of encouraging carbon reduction design without a feedback mechanism, because an engineering project is not designed based on raw materials but rather on building components, such as flooring, walls, roofs, ceilings, roads or cabinets. The LCBA Database has been composited from existing carbon footprint databases for raw materials and architectural graphic standards. Project designers can now use the LCBA Database to conduct low carbon design in a much more simple and efficient way. Daily energy usage throughout a building's life cycle, including air conditioning, lighting, and electric equipment, is very difficult for the building designer to predict. A good BCFES should provide a simplified and designer-friendly method to overcome this obstacle in predicting energy consumption. In this paper, the author has developed a simplified tool, the dynamic Energy Use Intensity (EUI) method, to accurately predict energy usage with simple multiplications and additions using EUI data and the designed efficiency levels for the building envelope, AC, lighting and electrical equipment. Remarkably simple to use, it can help designers pre-diagnose hotspots in building carbon footprint and further enhance low carbon designs. The BCFES-LCBA offers the advantages of an engineer-friendly component I/O database, simplified energy prediction methods, pre-diagnosis of carbon hotspots and sensitivity to good low carbon designs, making it an increasingly popular carbon management tool in Taiwan. To date, about thirty projects have been awarded BCFES-LCBA certification and the assessment has become mandatory in some cities.

Keywords: building carbon footprint, life cycle assessment, energy use intensity, building energy

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Authors: Amany Haridy, Ahmed Elseragy, Fahd Omar

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The issue of temperature increase in the urban microclimate has been at the center of attention recently, especially in dense urban areas, such as the City of Alexandria in Egypt, where building surfaces have become the dominant element (more than green areas and streets). Temperatures have been rising during daytime as well as nighttime, however, the research focused on the rise of air temperature at night, a phenomenon known as the urban heat island. This phenomenon has many effects on ecological life, as well as human health. This study provided evidence of the possibility of reducing the urban heat island by using a green building envelope (green wall and green roof) in Alexandria, Egypt. This City has witnessed a boom in growth in its urban fabric and population. A simulation analysis using the Envi-met software to find the ratio of air temperature reduction was performed. The simulation depended on the orientation of the green areas and their density, which was defined through a process of climatic analysis made by the Diva plugin using the Grasshopper software. Results showed that the reduction in air temperature varies from 0.8–2.0 °C, increasing with the increasing density of green areas. Many systems of green wall and green roof can be found in the local market. However, treating an existing building requires a careful choice of system to fit the building construction load and the surrounding nature. Among the systems of choice, there was the ‘geometric system’ of vertical greening that can be fixed on a light aluminum structure for walls and the extensive green system for roofs. Finally, native plants were the best choice in the long term because they fare well in the local climate.

Keywords: envi-met, green building envelope, urban heat island, urban microclimate

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Authors: Saemee Jun, Dong-Hyeon Shin, Tae-Sang Ahn, Hyung-Joon Kim

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Building loss estimation methodologies which have been advanced considerably in recent decades are usually used to estimate socio and economic impacts resulting from seismic structural damage. In accordance with these methods, this paper presents the evaluation of an annual loss probability of a reinforced concrete moment resisting frame designed according to Korean Building Code. The annual loss probability is defined by (1) a fragility curve obtained from a capacity spectrum method which is similar to a method adopted from HAZUS, and (2) a seismic hazard curve derived from annual frequencies of exceedance per peak ground acceleration. Seismic fragilities are computed to calculate the annual loss probability of a certain structure using functions depending on structural capacity, seismic demand, structural response and the probability of exceeding damage state thresholds. This study carried out a nonlinear static analysis to obtain the capacity of a RC moment resisting frame selected as a prototype building. The analysis results show that the probability of being extensive structural damage in the prototype building is expected to 0.004% in a year.

Keywords: expected annual loss, loss estimation, RC structure, fragility analysis

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Authors: Kamal Ahmed, Othman Ayman, Refat Mostafa

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The post-construction phase represents a critical milestone in the project lifecycle. This is because design errors and omissions, as well as construction defects, are examined during this phase. The traditional procurement approaches that are commonly adopted in construction projects separate design from construction, which ultimately inhibits contractors, suppliers and other parties from providing the design team with constructive comments and feedback to improve the project design. As a result, a lack of considering maintainability aspects during the design process results in increasing maintenance and operation costs as well as reducing building performance. This research aims to investigate the role of Early Supplier Involvement (ESI) in the design process as an approach to enhancing building maintainability. In order to achieve this aim, a research methodology consisting of a literature review, case studies and a survey questionnaire was designed to accomplish four objectives. Firstly, a literature review was used to examine the concepts of building maintenance, maintainability, the design process and ESI. Secondly, three case studies were presented and analyzed to investigate the role of ESI in enhancing building maintainability during the design process. Thirdly, a survey questionnaire was conducted with a representative sample of Architectural Design Firms (ADFs) in Egypt to investigate their perception and application of ESI towards enhancing building maintainability during the design process. Finally, the research developed a framework to facilitate ESI in the design process in ADFs in Egypt. Data analysis showed that the ‘Difficulty of trusting external parties and sharing information with transparency’ was ranked the highest challenge of ESI in ADFs in Egypt, followed by ‘Legal competitive advantage restrictions’. Moreover, ‘Better estimation for operation and maintenance costs’ was ranked the highest contribution of ESI towards enhancing building maintainability, followed by ‘Reduce the number of operation and maintenance problems or reworks’. Finally, ‘Innovation, technical expertise, and competence’ was ranked the highest supplier’s selection criteria, while ‘paying consultation fees for offering advice and recommendations to the design team’ was ranked the highest form of supplier’s remuneration. The proposed framework represents a synthesis that is creative in thought and adds value to the knowledge in a manner that has not previously occurred.

Keywords: maintenance, building maintainability, building life cycle cost (ICC), material supplier

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Authors: Amani M. Al-Hussan

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The current study aimed to explore the effects of science teaching strategies course (CURR422) on developing academic self efficacy and motivation towards teaching it in female primary classroom teachers in College of Education in Princess Nora Bint AbdulRahman University. The study sample consisted (48) female student teachers. To achieve the study aims, the researcher designed two instruments: Academic Self Efficacy Scale & Motivation towards Teaching Science Scale while maintaining the validity and reliability of these instruments.. Several statistical procedures were conducted i.e. Independent Sample T-test, Eta Square, Cohen D effect size. The results reveal that there were statistically significant differences between means of pre and post test for the sample in favor of post test. For academic self efficacy scale, Eta square was 0.99 and the effect size was 27.26. While for the motivation towards teaching science scale, Eta was 0.99 and the effect size was 51.72. These results indicated high effects of independent variable on the dependent variable.

Keywords: academic self efficiency, achievement, motivation, primary classroom teacher, science teaching strategies course, evaluation

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Authors: Lourdes Gutierrez, Eric Williams

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Post-occupancy research shows that only 11% of commercial buildings met the ASHRAE thermal comfort standard. Many buildings are too warm in winter and/or too cool in summer, wasting energy and not providing comfort. In this paper, potential energy savings in U.S. offices and restaurants if thermostat settings are calculated according the updated ASHRAE 55-2013 comfort model that accounts for outdoor temperature and clothing choice for different climate zones. eQUEST building models are calibrated to reproduce aggregate energy consumption as reported in the U.S. Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey. Changes in energy consumption due to the new settings are analyzed for 14 cities in different climate zones and then the results are extrapolated to estimate potential national savings. It is found that, depending on the climate zone, each degree increase in the summer saves 0.6 to 1.0% of total building electricity consumption. Each degree the winter setting is lowered saves 1.2% to 8.7% of total building natural gas consumption. With new thermostat settings, national savings are 2.5% of the total consumed in all office buildings and restaurants, summing up to national savings of 69.6 million GJ annually, comparable to all 2015 total solar PV generation in US. The goals of improved comfort and energy/economic savings are thus co-aligned, raising the importance of thermostat management as an energy efficiency strategy.

Keywords: energy savings quantifications, commercial building stocks, dynamic clothing insulation model, operation-focused interventions, energy management, thermal comfort, thermostat settings

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Authors: Helen Ngozi Ibe, Chimmuanya Ezere

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The study investigated the effect of Question Answer Relationships (QARs) in science reading on secondary school students’ achievement in Biology in Owerri Education Zone II of Imo State. The study adopted a quasi-experimental design and was guided by two research questions and two hypotheses. The sample comprised of 67 SS2 Biology students. The sample was drawn using random sampling technique. One researcher made instrument titled: Biology Achievement Test (BAT) was used for collecting the data of the study. The reliability of the instrument was established using Kuder Richardson formula (KR-20) which yielded a reliability index of 0.85 and Cronbach alpha for the BSIRS with an index of 0.71. Research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation. T-test statistics was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The major findings are that students exposed to QARs strategy in science reading had higher achievement mean scores in biology than students in the control group; there is no significant difference between the achievement mean scores of male and female students exposed to QARs. The researchers recommended that science teachers should teach students the Question Answer Relationship reading strategy and that science students should endeavour to use the question - answer relationship reading strategy in classroom and individual science reading in order to enhance high academic achievement in the subjects being read.

Keywords: academic achievement, biology, science reading, question-answer relationship

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Authors: Mohadeseh Salari Sardari

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As Muslims conquered Iran, their first impression was to show their power over others. They needed mosques for their multiple needs like prayer, tax collecting, law-making, hearing of law cases, and most important of all, as a seat of government. Sometimes they did not have time to build mosques and only began to build them after years of ruling. Many religious buildings with pre-Islamic past survived in Iran, most of the fire temples in cities were destroyed or changed radically, but some deserted temples outside of cities survived, and based on these surviving buildings, we can trace changes in fire temples inside cities and discover how they were adapted and expanded to be mosques. In addition, there are some other buildings with doubts about their date of construction. These buildings might be transitional buildings between two different historical eras or might be an old building with a slight change. One of these interesting buildings is Tarikhaneh, a small, simple yet striking building. By tracing Tarikhaneh’s roots in other buildings like fire temples and secular buildings existed before Arab invasion, it can be better understood how the original form of Tatikhaneh was.

Keywords: iranian architecture, early mosques, fire temples, adaptation and reuse

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Authors: Robert Wimmer, Soeren Eikemeier, Michael Berger, Anita Preisler

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A relatively large percentage of energy and resource consumption occurs in the building sector. This concerns the production of building materials, the construction of buildings and also the energy consumption during the use phase. Therefore, the overall objective of this EU LIFE project “LIFE Cycle Habitation” (LIFE13 ENV/AT/000741) is to demonstrate innovative building concepts that significantly reduce CO₂emissions, mitigate climate change and contain a minimum of grey energy over their entire life cycle. The project is being realised with the contribution of the LIFE financial instrument of the European Union. The ultimate goal is to design and build prototypes for carbon-neutral and “LIFE cycle”-oriented residential buildings and make energy-efficient settlements the standard of tomorrow in line with the EU 2020 objectives. To this end, a resource and energy-efficient building compound is being built in Böheimkirchen, Lower Austria, which includes 6 living units and a community area as well as 2 single family houses with a total usable floor surface of approximately 740 m². Different innovative straw bale construction types (load bearing and pre-fabricated non loadbearing modules) together with a highly innovative energy-supply system, which is based on the maximum use of thermal energy for thermal energy services, are going to be implemented. Therefore only renewable resources and alternative energies are used to generate thermal as well as electrical energy. This includes the use of solar energy for space heating, hot water and household appliances like dishwasher or washing machine, but also a cooking place for the community area operated with thermal oil as heat transfer medium on a higher temperature level. Solar collectors in combination with a biomass cogeneration unit and photovoltaic panels are used to provide thermal and electric energy for the living units according to the seasonal demand. The building concepts are optimised by support of dynamic simulations. A particular focus is on the production and use of modular prefabricated components and building parts made of regionally available, highly energy-efficient, CO₂-storing renewable materials like straw bales. The building components will be produced in collaboration by local SMEs that are organised in an efficient way. The whole building process and results are monitored and prepared for knowledge transfer and dissemination including a trial living in the residential units to test and monitor the energy supply system and to involve stakeholders into evaluation and dissemination of the applied technologies and building concepts. The realised building concepts should then be used as templates for a further modular extension of the settlement in a second phase.

Keywords: energy-efficiency, green architecture, renewable resources, sustainable building

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Authors: Salma Maher, Ahmed Elseragy, Sally Eldeeb

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Nowadays, Urbanism and climate change lead to the rapid growth in energy consumption and the increase of using air-conditioning for cooling. In a hot climate area, there is a need for a new sustainable alternative that is more convenient for an existing situation. The Building envelope controls the heat transfer between the outside and inside the building. While the building façade is the most critical part, types of façade material play a vital role in influences of the energy demand for heating and cooling due to exposure to direct solar radiation throughout the day. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the use of curtain walls in office buildings façades started to increase rapidly, which lead to more cooling loads in energy consumption. Integrating the living wall system in urban areas as a sustainable renovation and energy-saving method for the built environment will reduce the energy demand of buildings and will also provide environmental benefits. Also, it will balance the urban ecology and enhance urban life quality. The results show that the living wall systems reduce the internal temperature up to 4.0 °C. This research carries on an analytical study by highlighting the different types of living wall systems and verifying their thermal performance, energy-saving, and life potential on the building. These assessing criteria include the reason for using the Living wall systems in the building façade as well as the effect it has upon the surrounding environment. Finally, the paper ends with concluding the effect of using living wall systems on building. And, it suggests a system as long-lasting, and energy-efficient solution to be applied in curtain wall façades in a hot climate area.

Keywords: living wall systems, energy consumption, curtain walls, energy-saving, sustainability, urban life quality

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Authors: Chin-Yu Lin, Kun-Chi Wang, Shih-Hsu Wang, Wei-Chih Wang

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A construction superintendent needs to know not only the amount of quantities of cost items or materials completed to develop a daily report or calculate the daily progress (earned value) in each day, but also the amount of quantities of materials (e.g., reinforced steel and concrete) to be ordered (or moved into the jobsite) for performing the in-progress or ready-to-start construction activities (e.g., erection of reinforced steel and concrete pouring). These daily construction management tasks require great effort in extracting accurate quantities in a short time (usually must be completed right before getting off work every day). As a result, most superintendents can only provide these quantity data based on either what they see on the site (high inaccuracy) or the extraction of quantities from two-dimension (2D) construction drawings (high time consumption). Hence, the current practice of providing the amount of quantity data completed in each day needs improvement in terms of more accuracy and efficiency. Recently, a three-dimension (3D)-based building information model (BIM) technique has been widely applied to support construction quantity takeoffs (QTO) process. The capability of virtual reality (VR) allows to view a building from the first person's viewpoint. Thus, this study proposes an innovative system by integrating VR (using 'Unity') and BIM (using 'Revit') to extract quantities to support the above daily construction management tasks. The use of VR allows a system user to be present in a virtual building to more objectively assess the construction progress in the office. This VR- and BIM-based system is also facilitated by an integrated database (consisting of the information and data associated with the BIM model, QTO, and costs). In each day, a superintendent can work through a BIM-based virtual building to quickly identify (via a developed VR shooting function) the building components (or objects) that are in-progress or finished in the jobsite. And he then specifies a percentage (e.g., 20%, 50% or 100%) of completion of each identified building object based on his observation on the jobsite. Next, the system will generate the completed quantities that day by multiplying the specified percentage by the full quantities of the cost items (or materials) associated with the identified object. A building construction project located in northern Taiwan is used as a case study to test the benefits (i.e., accuracy and efficiency) of the proposed system in quantity extraction for supporting the development of daily reports and the orders of construction materials.

Keywords: building information model, construction management, quantity takeoffs, virtual reality

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Authors: Shi-Yu Xu

Abstract:

The top three risk factors that have contributed to building collapses during past earthquake events in Taiwan are: "irregular floor plans or elevations," "insufficient columns in single-bay buildings," and the "weak-story problem." Fortunately, these unsound structural characteristics can be directly identified from the floor plans. However, due to the vast number of old buildings, conducting manual inspections to identify these compromised structural features in all existing structures would be time-consuming and prone to human errors. This study aims to develop an algorithm that utilizes artificial intelligence techniques to automatically pinpoint the structural components within a building's floor plans. The obtained spatial information will be utilized to construct a digital structural model of the building. This information, particularly regarding the distribution of columns in the floor plan, can then be used to conduct preliminary seismic assessments of the building. The study employs various image processing and pattern recognition techniques to enhance detection efficiency and accuracy. The study enables a large-scale evaluation of structural vulnerability for numerous old buildings, providing ample time to arrange for structural retrofitting in those buildings that are at risk of significant damage or collapse during earthquakes.

Keywords: structural vulnerability detection, object recognition, seismic capacity assessment, old buildings, artificial intelligence

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Authors: Hamid Nikzad, Shinta Yoshitomi

Abstract:

In this paper, nonlinear static pushover analysis is performed on 15 storied RC building structure with a shear wall to evaluate the seismic performance of the building. Section sizes of the members are obtained based on structural optimization method utilizing MATLAB frame optimizer, then the structure is simulated and designed in ETABS program conforming ACI 318-14 design code. The pushover curve has been generated by pushing the top node of the structure to the limited target displacement. Members failure due to the formation of plastic hinges, considering shear wall-frame structure was observed and the result of this study is presented based on current regulation of FEMA356, ASCE7-10, and ACI 318-14 design criteria

Keywords: structural optimization, linear static analysis, ETABS, MATLAB, RC moment frame, RC shear wall structures

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Authors: Nika Botchorishvili, Olgha Giorgishvili

Abstract:

Many-year investigations of the nature of damping creep of rigid bodies and materials led to the discovery of the fundamental character of this phenomenon. It occurs only when a rigid body comes in contact with a surface-active medium (liquid or gaseous), which brings about a decrease of the free surface energy of a rigid body as a result of adsorption, chemo-sorption or wetting. The reversibility of the process consists of a gradual disappearance of creep deformation when the action of a surface-active medium stops. To clarify the essence of processes, a physical model is constructed by using Griffith’s scheme and the well-known representation formulas of deformation origination and failure processes. The total creep deformation is caused by the formation and opening of microcracks throughout the material volume under the action of load. This supposedly happens in macroscopically homogeneous silicate and organic glasses, while in polycrystals (tuff, gypsum, steel) contacting with a surface-active medium micro crack are formed mainly on the grain boundaries. The creep of rubber is due to its swelling activated by stress. Acknowledgment: All experiments are financially supported by Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia. Study of Properties of Concretes (Both Ordinary and Compacted) Made of Local Building Materials and Containing Admixtures, and Their Further Introduction in Construction Operations and Road Building. DP2016_26. 22.12.2016.

Keywords: process reversibility, surface-active medium, Rebinder’s effect, micro crack, creep

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Authors: Nofiu A. Musa, Olubola Babalola

Abstract:

The study explored the effect of ICT on the accuracy of Preliminary Cost Estimates (PCEs) prepared by quantity surveying consulting firms in Nigeria for building projects, with a view to determining the desirability of the adoption and use of the technological innovation for preliminary estimating. Thus, data pertinent to the study were obtained through questionnaire survey conducted on a sample of one hundred and eight (108) quantity surveying firms selected from the list of registered firms compiled by the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS), Lagos State Chapter through systematic random sampling. The data obtained were analyzed with SPSS version 17 using student’s t-tests at 5% significance level. The results obtained revealed that the mean bias and co-efficient of variation of the PCEs of the firms are significantly less at post ICT adoption period than the pre ICT adoption period, F < 0.05 in each case. The paper concluded that the adoption and use of the Technological Innovation (ICT) has significantly improved the accuracy of the Preliminary Cost Estimates (PCEs) of building projects, hence, it is desirable.

Keywords: accepted tender price, accuracy, bias, building projects, consistency, information and communications technology, preliminary cost estimates

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Authors: Iveta Nováková, Martin-Andrè S. Husby, Boy-Arne Buyle

Abstract:

The building industry has one of the most significant contributions to global warming due to the production of building materials, transportation, building activities, and demolition of structures when they reach the end of their life. Implementation of circular material flow and circular economy can significantly reduce greenhouse gasses and simultaneously reduce the need for natural resources. The use of recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) is one of the possibilities for reducing the depletion of raw materials for concrete production. Concrete is the most used building material worldwide, and aggregates constitute 70% of its volume. RCA can replace a certain amount of natural aggregates (NA), and concrete will still perform as required. The aim of this scientific paper is to evaluate RCA properties with and without mechanical treatment. Analysis of RCA itself will be followed by compressive strength of concrete containing various amounts of treated and non-treated RCA. Results showed improvement in compressive strength of the mix with mechanically treated RCA compared to standard RCA, and even the strength of concrete with mechanically treated RCA in dose 50% of coarse aggregates was higher than the reference mix by 4%. Based on obtained results, it can be concluded that integration of RCA in industrial concrete production is feasible, at a replacement ratio of 50% for mechanically treated RCA and 30% if untreated RCA is used, without affecting the compressive strength negatively.

Keywords: recycled concrete aggregates, mechanical treatment, aggregate properties, compression strength

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Authors: K. Y. You, Y. L. Then

Abstract:

In the recent years, the hair building fiber has become popular, in other words, it is an effective method which helps people who suffer hair loss or sparse hair since the hair building fiber is capable to create a natural look of simulated hair rapidly. In the markets, there are a lot of hair fiber brands that have been designed to formulate an intense bond with hair strands and make the hair appear more voluminous instantly. However, those products have their own set of properties. Thus, in this report, some measurement techniques are proposed to identify those products. Up to five different brands of hair fiber are tested. The electrostatic and dielectric properties of the hair fibers are macroscopically tested using design DC and high-frequency microwave techniques. Besides, the hair fibers are microscopically analysis by magnifying the structures of the fiber using scanning electron microscope (SEM). From the SEM photos, the comparison of the uniformly shaped and broken rate of the hair fibers in the different bulk samples can be observed respectively.

Keywords: hair fiber, electrostatic, dielectric properties, broken rate, microwave techniques

Procedia PDF Downloads 309