Search results for: structural building system
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 23645

Search results for: structural building system

22745 Monitoring and Analysis of Bridge Crossing Ground Fissures

Authors: Zhiqing Zhang, Xiangong Zhou, Zihan Zhou

Abstract:

Ground fissures can be seen in some cities all over the world. As a special urban geological disaster, ground fissures in Xi'an have caused great harm to infrastructure. Chang'an Road Interchange in Xi'an City is a bridge across ground fissures. The damage to Chang'an Road interchange is the most serious and typical. To study the influence of ground fissures on the bridge, we established a bridge monitoring system. The main monitoring items include elevation monitoring, structural displacement monitoring, etc. The monitoring results show that the typical failure is mainly reflected in the bridge deck damage caused by horizontal tension and vertical dislocation. For the construction of urban interchange spanning ground fissures, the interchange should be divided reasonably, a simple support structure with less restriction should be adopted, and the monitoring of supports should be strengthened to prevent the occurrence of beam falling.

Keywords: bridge monitoring, ground fissures, typical disease, structural displacement

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22744 Consequence of Multi-Templating of Closely Related Structural Analogues on a Chitosan-Methacryllic Acid Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Matrix-Thermal and Chromatographic Traits

Authors: O.Ofoegbu, S. Roongnapa, A.N. Eboatu

Abstract:

Most polluted environments, most challengingly, aerosol types, contain a cocktail of different toxicants. Multi-templating of matrices have been the recent target by researchers in a bid to solving complex mixed-toxicant challenges using single or common remediation systems. This investigation looks at the effect of such multi-templated system vis-a-vis the synthesis by non-covalent interaction, of a molecularly imprinted polymer architecture using nicotine and its structural analogue Phenylalanine amide individually and, in the blend, (50:50), as template materials in a Chitosan-Methacrylic acid functional monomer matrix. The temperature for polymerization is 60OC and time for polymerization, 12hrs (water bath heating), 4mins for (microwave heating). The characteristic thermal properties of the molecularly imprinted materials are investigated using Simultaneous Thermal Analysis (STA) profiling, while the absorption and separation efficiencies based on the relative retention times and peak areas of templates were studied amongst other properties. Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) results obtained, show the creation of heterogeneous nanocavities, regardless, the introduction of Caffeine a close structural analogue presented near-zero perfusion. This confirms the selectivity and specificity of the templated polymers despite its dual-templated nature. The STA results presented the materials as having decomposition temperatures above 250OC and a relative loss in mass of less than19% over a period within 50mins of heating. Consequent to this outcome, multi-templated systems can be fabricated to sequester specifically and selectively targeted toxicants in a mixed toxicant populated system effectively.

Keywords: chitosan, dual-templated, methacrylic acid, mixed-toxicants, molecularly-imprinted-polymer

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22743 Effects of Rising Cost of Building Materials in Nigeria: A Case Study of Adamawa State

Authors: Ibrahim Yerima Gwalem, Jamila Ahmed Buhari

Abstract:

In recent years, there has been an alarming rate of increase in the costs of building materials in Nigeria, and this ugly phenomenon threatens the contributions of the construction industry in national development. The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of the rising cost of building materials in Adamawa State Nigeria. Four research questions in line with the purpose of the study were raised to guide the study. Two null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted a survey research design. The population of the study comprises registered contractors, registered builders, selected merchants, and consultants in Adamawa state. Data were collected using researcher designed instrument tagged effects of the rising cost of building materials questionnaire (ERCBMQ). The instrument was subjected to face and content validation by two experts, one from Modibbo Adama University of Technology Yola and the other from Federal Polytechnic Mubi. The reliability of the instrument was determined by the Cronbach Alpha method and yielded a reliability index of 0.85 high enough to ascertain the reliability. Data collected from a field survey of 2019 was analyzed using mean and percentage. The means of the prices were used in the calculations of price indices and rates of inflation on building materials. Findings revealed that factors responsible for the rising cost of building materials are the exchange rate of the Nigeria Naira with a mean rating (MR) = 4.4; cost of fuel and power supply, MR = 4.3; and changes in government policies and legislation, MR = 4.2, while fluctuations in the construction cost with MR = 2.8; reduced volume of construction output, MR = 2.52; and risk of project abandonment, MRA = 2.51, were the three effects. The study concluded that adverse effects could result in a downward effect on the contributions of the construction industries on the gross domestic product (GDP) in the nation’s economy. Among the recommendations proffered include that the government should formulate a policy that will play down the agitations on the use of imported building materials by encouraging research in the production of local building materials.

Keywords: effects, rising, cost, building, materials

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22742 Optimization of Steel Moment Frame Structures Using Genetic Algorithm

Authors: Mohammad Befkin, Alireza Momtaz

Abstract:

Structural design is the challenging aspect of every project due to limitations in dimensions, functionality of the structure, and more importantly, the allocated budget for construction. This research study aims to investigate the optimized design for three steel moment frame buildings with different number of stories using genetic algorithm code. The number and length of spans, and height of each floor were constant in all three buildings. The design of structures are carried out according to AISC code within the provisions of plastic design with allowable stress values. Genetic code for optimization is produced using MATLAB program, while buildings modeled in Opensees program and connected to the MATLAB code to perform iterations in optimization steps. In the end designs resulted from genetic algorithm code were compared with the analysis of buildings in ETABS program. The results demonstrated that suggested structural elements by the code utilize their full capacity, indicating the desirable efficiency of produced code.

Keywords: genetic algorithm, structural analysis, steel moment frame, structural design

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22741 Consolidating Service Engineering Ontologies Building Service Ontology from SOA Modeling Language (SoaML)

Authors: Purnomo Yustianto, Robin Doss, Suhardi, Novianto Budi Kurniawan

Abstract:

As a term for characterizing a process of devising a service system, the term ‘service engineering’ is still regarded as an ‘open’ research challenge due to unspecified details and conflicting perspectives. This paper presents consolidated service engineering ontologies in collecting, specifying and defining relationship between components pertinent within the context of service engineering. The ontologies are built by way of literature surveys from the collected conceptual works by collating various concepts into an integrated ontology. Two ontologies are produced: general service ontology and software service ontology. The software-service ontology is drawn from the informatics domain, while the generalized ontology of a service system is built from both a business management and the information system perspective. The produced ontologies are verified by exercising conceptual operationalizations of the ontologies in adopting several service orientation features and service system patterns. The proposed ontologies are demonstrated to be sufficient to serve as a basis for a service engineering framework.

Keywords: engineering, ontology, service, SoaML

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22740 Properties of Concrete with Wood Ashes in Construction Engineering

Authors: Piotr-Robert Lazik, Lena Teichmann, Harald Garrecht

Abstract:

Many concrete technologists are looking for a solution to replace fly ashes as a component that occurs as a major component of many types of concrete. The importance of such a component is clear -it saves cement and reduces the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere that occurs during cement production. For example, the amount of cement in ultrahigh strength concrete (UHPC) is approximately 700-800 kg/m³ in normal concrete up to 350 kg/m³. For this reason, it is easy to follow that the use of components like fly ashes or wood ashes protect the environment. The newest investigations carried out at the University of Stuttgart have clearly shown that the use of wood ashes with appropriate pre-treatment in concrete has a positive effect. German-wide, there are hundreds of tons of wood ashes, which can be used in a wide range of construction materials. The strengths of the concrete with different types of cement and with wood ashes have given the same or, in some cases, better results than those with the use of fly ashes. There are many areas in building construction, where the clays of wood ashes can be used as a by-product. This does not only require a strength test but also, for example, an examination of structural-physical parameters. Especially the heat and moisture characteristics have an important role in times of energy-efficient construction. These are therefore determined and then compared with the characteristics of the concretes with fly ashes. The University of Stuttgart has decided to investigate the buildings' physical properties of different types of concrete with wood ashes to find their application in construction. After the examination of the buildings' physical properties in combination with strength tests, it is possible to determine in which field of civil engineering, this type of concrete can be used.

Keywords: fly ashes, wood ashes, structural-physical parameters, UHPC

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22739 Low-Cost Embedded Biometric System Based on Fingervein Modality

Authors: Randa Boukhris, Alima Damak, Dorra Sellami

Abstract:

Fingervein biometric authentication is one of the most popular and accurate technologies. However, low cost embedded solution is still an open problem. In this paper, a real-time implementation of fingervein recognition process embedded in Raspberry-Pi has been proposed. The use of Raspberry-Pi reduces overall system cost and size while allowing an easy user interface. Implementation of a target technology has guided to opt some specific parallel and simple processing algorithms. In the proposed system, we use four structural directional kernel elements for filtering finger vein images. Then, a Top-Hat and Bottom-Hat kernel filters are used to enhance the visibility and the appearance of venous images. For feature extraction step, a simple Local Directional Code (LDC) descriptor is applied. The proposed system presents an Error Equal Rate (EER) and Identification Rate (IR), respectively, equal to 0.02 and 98%. Furthermore, experimental results show that real-time operations have good performance.

Keywords: biometric, Bottom-Hat, Fingervein, LDC, Rasberry-Pi, ROI, Top-Hat

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22738 Developing a Decision-Making Tool for Prioritizing Green Building Initiatives

Authors: Tayyab Ahmad, Gerard Healey

Abstract:

Sustainability in built environment sector is subject to many development constraints. Building projects are developed under different requirements of deliverables which makes each project unique. For an owner organization, i.e., a higher-education institution, involved in a significant building stock, it is important to prioritize some of the sustainability initiatives over the others in order to align the sustainable building development with organizational goals. The point-based green building rating tools i.e. Green Star, LEED, BREEAM are becoming increasingly popular and are well-acknowledged worldwide for verifying a sustainable development. It is imperative to synthesize a multi-criteria decision-making tool that can capitalize on the point-based methodology of rating systems while customizing the sustainable development of building projects according to the individual requirements and constraints of the client organization. A multi-criteria decision-making tool for the University of Melbourne is developed that builds on the action-learning and experience of implementing Green Buildings at the University of Melbourne. The tool evaluates the different sustainable building initiatives based on the framework of Green Star rating tool of Green Building Council of Australia. For each different sustainability initiative the decision-making tool makes an assessment based on at least five performance criteria including the ease with which a sustainability initiative can be achieved and the potential of a sustainability initiative to enhance project objectives, reduce life-cycle costs, enhance University’s reputation, and increase the confidence in quality construction. The use of a weighted aggregation mathematical model in the proposed tool can have a considerable role in the decision-making process of a Green Building project by indexing the Green Building initiatives in terms of organizational priorities. The index value of each initiative will be based on its alignment with some of the key performance criteria. The usefulness of the decision-making tool is validated by conducting structured interviews with some of the key stakeholders involved in the development of sustainable building projects at the University of Melbourne. The proposed tool is realized to help a client organization in deciding that within limited resources which sustainability initiatives and practices are more important to be pursued than others.

Keywords: higher education institution, multi-criteria decision-making tool, organizational values, prioritizing sustainability initiatives, weighted aggregation model

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22737 Building up of European Administrative Space at Central and Local Level as a Key Challenge for the Kosovo's Further State Building Process

Authors: Arlinda Memetaj

Abstract:

Building up of a well-functioning administrative justice system is one of the key prerequisites for ensuring the existence of an accountable and efficient public administration in Kosovo as well. To this aim, the country has already established an almost comprehensive legislative and institutional frameworks. The latter derives from (among others) the Kosovo`s Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU of 2016. A series of efforts are being presently still undertaken by all relevant domestic and international stakeholders being active in both the Kosovo`s public administration reform and the country` s system of a local self-government. Both systems are thus under a constant state of reform. Despite the aforesaid, there is still a series of shortcomings in the country in above context. There is a lot of backlog of administrative cases in the Prishtina Administrative court; there is a public lack in judiciary; the public administration is organized in a fragmented way; the administrative laws are still not properly implemented at local level; the municipalities` legislative and executive branches are not sufficiently transparent for the ordinary citizens ... Against the above short background, the full paper firstly outlines the legislative and institutional framework of the Kosovo's systems of an administrative justice and local self-government (on the basis of the fact that public administration and local government are not separate fields). It then illustrates the key specific shortcomings in those fields, as seen from the perspective of the citizens' right to good administration. It finally claims that the current status quo situation in the country may be resolved (among others) by granting Kosovo a status of full member state of the Council of Europe or at least granting it with a temporary status of a contracting party of (among others) the European Human Rights Convention. The later would enable all Kosovo citizens (regardless their ethnic or other origin whose human rights are violated by the Kosovo`s relative administrative authorities including the administrative courts) to bring their case/s before the respective well-known European Strasbourg-based Human Rights Court. This would consequently put the State under permanent and full monitoring process, with a view to obliging the country to properly implement the European Court`s decisions (as adopted by this court in those cases). This would be a benefit first of all for the very Kosovo`s ordinary citizens regardless their ethnic or other background. It would provide for a particular positive input in the ongoing efforts being undertaken by Kosovo and Serbia states within the EU-facilitated Dialogue, with a view to building up of an integral administrative justice system at central and local level in the whole Kosovo` s territory. The main method used in this paper is the descriptive, analytical and comparative one.

Keywords: administrative courts, administrative justice, administrative procedure, benefit, European Human Rights Court, human rights, monitoring, reform.

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22736 Building Capacity and Personnel Flow Modeling for Operating amid COVID-19

Authors: Samuel Fernandes, Dylan Kato, Emin Burak Onat, Patrick Keyantuo, Raja Sengupta, Amine Bouzaghrane

Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic has spread across the United States, forcing cities to impose stay-at-home and shelter-in-place orders. Building operations had to adjust as non-essential personnel worked from home. But as buildings prepare for personnel to return, they need to plan for safe operations amid new COVID-19 guidelines. In this paper we propose a methodology for capacity and flow modeling of personnel within buildings to safely operate under COVID-19 guidelines. We model personnel flow within buildings by network flows with queuing constraints. We study maximum flow, minimum cost, and minimax objectives. We compare our network flow approach with a simulation model through a case study and present the results. Our results showcase various scenarios of how buildings could be operated under new COVID-19 guidelines and provide a framework for building operators to plan and operate buildings in this new paradigm.

Keywords: network analysis, building simulation, COVID-19

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22735 Characterization of Mg/Sc System for X-Ray Spectroscopy in the Water Window Range

Authors: Hina Verma, Karine Le Guen, Mohammed H. Modi, Rajnish Dhawan, Philippe Jonnard

Abstract:

Periodic multilayer mirrors have potential application as optical components in X-ray microscopy, particularly working in the water window region. The water window range, located between the absorption edges of carbon (285 eV) and oxygen (530eV), along with the presence of nitrogen K absorption edge (395 eV), makes it a powerful method for imaging biological samples due to the natural optical contrast between water and carbon. We characterized bilayer, trilayer, quadrilayer, and multilayer systems of Mg/Sc with ZrC thin layers introduced as a barrier layer and capping layer prepared by ion beam sputtering. The introduction of ZrC as a barrier layer is expected to improve the structure of the Mg/Sc system. The ZrC capping layer also prevents the stack from oxidation. The structural analysis of the Mg/Sc systems was carried out by using grazing incidence X-ray reflectivity (GIXRR) to obtain non-destructively a first description of the structural parameters, thickness, roughness, and density of the layers. Resonant soft X-ray reflectivity measurements in the vicinity of Sc L-absorption edge were performed to investigate and quantify the atomic distribution of deposited layers. Near absorption edge, the atomic scattering factor of an element changes sharply depending on its chemical environment inside the structure.

Keywords: buried interfaces, resonant soft X-ray reflectivity, X-ray optics, X-ray reflectivity

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22734 Towards the Need of Resilient Design and Its Assessment in South China

Authors: Alan Lai, Wilson Yik

Abstract:

With rapid urbanization, there has been a dramatic increase in global urban population in Asia and over half of population in Asia will live in urban regions in the near future. Facing with increasing exposure to climate-related stresses and shocks, most of the Asian cities will very likely to experience more frequent heat waves and flooding with rising sea levels, particularly the coastal cities will grapple for intense typhoons and storm surges. These climate changes have severe impacts in urban areas at the costs of infrastructure and population, for example, human health, wellbeing and high risks of dengue fever, malaria and diarrheal disease. With the increasing prominence of adaptation to climate changes, there have been changes in corresponding policies. Smaller cities have greater potentials for integrating the concept of resilience into their infrastructure as well as keeping pace with their rapid growths in population. It is therefore important to explore the potentials of Asian cities adapting to climate change and the opportunities of building climate resilience in urban planning and building design. Furthermore, previous studies have mainly attempted at exploiting the potential of resilience on a macro-level within urban planning rather than that on micro-level within the context of individual building. The resilience of individual building as a research field has not yet been much explored. Nonetheless, recent studies define that the resilience of an individual building is the one which is able to respond to physical damage and recover from such damage in a quickly and cost-effectively manner, while maintain its primary functions. There is also a need to develop an assessment tool to evaluate the resilience on building scale which is still largely uninvestigated as it should be regarded as a basic function of a building. Due to the lack of literature reporting metric for assessing building resilience with sustainability, the research will be designed as a case study to provide insight into the issue. The aim of this research project is to encourage and assist in developing neighborhood climate resilience design strategies for Hong Kong so as to bridge the gap between difference scales and that between theory and practice.

Keywords: resilience cities, building resilience, resilient buildings and infrastructure, climate resilience, hot and humid southeast area, high-density cities

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22733 A Secure Proxy Signature Scheme with Fault Tolerance Based on RSA System

Authors: H. El-Kamchouchi, Heba Gaber, Fatma Ahmed, Dalia H. El-Kamchouchi

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Due to the rapid growth in modern communication systems, fault tolerance and data security are two important issues in a secure transaction. During the transmission of data between the sender and receiver, errors may occur frequently. Therefore, the sender must re-transmit the data to the receiver in order to correct these errors, which makes the system very feeble. To improve the scalability of the scheme, we present a secure proxy signature scheme with fault tolerance over an efficient and secure authenticated key agreement protocol based on RSA system. Authenticated key agreement protocols have an important role in building a secure communications network between the two parties.

Keywords: proxy signature, fault tolerance, rsa, key agreement protocol

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22732 A Method for Consensus Building between Teachers and Learners in a Value Co-Creative Learning Service

Authors: Ryota Sugino, Satoshi Mizoguchi, Koji Kimita, Keiichi Muramatsu, Tatsunori Matsui, Yoshiki Shimomura

Abstract:

Improving added value and productivity of services entails improving both value-in-exchange and value-in-use. Value-in-use is realized by value co-creation, where providers and receivers create value together. In higher education services, value-in-use comes from learners achieving learning outcomes (e.g., knowledge and skills) that are consistent with their learning goals. To enhance the learning outcomes of a learner, it is necessary to enhance and utilize the abilities of the teacher along with the abilities of the learner. To do this, however, the learner and the teacher need to build a consensus about their respective roles. Teachers need to provide effective learning content; learners need to choose the appropriate learning strategies by using the learning content through consensus building. This makes consensus building an important factor in value co-creation. However, methods to build a consensus about their respective roles may not be clearly established, making such consensus difficult. In this paper, we propose some strategies for consensus building between a teacher and a learner in value co-creation. We focus on a teacher and learner co-design and propose an analysis method to clarify a collaborative design process to realize value co-creation. We then analyze some counseling data obtained from a university class. This counseling aimed to build a consensus for value-in-use, learning outcomes, and learning strategies between the teacher and the learner.

Keywords: consensus building, value co-creation, higher education, learning service

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22731 Seismic Performance Evaluation of Bridge Structures Using 3D Finite Element Methods in South Korea

Authors: Woo Young Jung, Bu Seog Ju

Abstract:

This study described the seismic performance evaluation of bridge structures, located near Daegu metropolitan city in Korea. The structural design code or regulatory guidelines is focusing on the protection of brittle failure or collapse in bridges’ lifetime during an earthquake. This paper illustrated the procedure in terms of the safety evaluation of bridges using simple linear elastic 3D Finite Element (FE) model in ABAQUS platform. The design response spectra based on KBC 2009 were then developed, in order to understand the seismic behavior of bridge structures. Besides, the multiple directional earthquakes were applied and it revealed that the most dominated earthquake direction was transverse direction of the bridge. Also, the bridge structure under the compressive stress was more fragile than the tensile stress and the vertical direction of seismic ground motions was not significantly affected to the structural system.

Keywords: seismic, bridge, FEM, evaluation, numerical analysis

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22730 Change of the Thermal Conductivity of Polystyrene Insulation in term of Temperature at the Mid Thickness of the Insulation Material: Impact on the Cooling Load

Authors: M. Khoukhi

Abstract:

Accurate prediction of the cooling/heating load and consequently, the sizing of the heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning equipment require precise calculation of the heat transfer mainly by conduction through envelope components of a building. The thermal resistance of most thermal insulation materials depends on the operating temperature. The temperature to which the insulation materials are exposed varies, depending on the thermal resistance of the materials, the location of the insulation layer within the assembly system, and the effective temperature which depends on the amount of solar radiation received on the surface of the assembly. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the change of the thermal conductivity of polystyrene insulation material in terms of the temperature at the mid-thickness of the material and its effect on the cooling load required by the building.

Keywords: operating temperature, polystyrene insulation, thermal conductivity, cooling load

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22729 Future Housing Energy Efficiency Associated with the Auckland Unitary Plan

Authors: Bin Su

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The draft Auckland Unitary Plan outlines the future land used for new housing and businesses with Auckland population growth over the next thirty years. According to Auckland Unitary Plan, over the next 30 years, the population of Auckland is projected to increase by one million, and up to 70% of total new dwellings occur within the existing urban area. Intensification will not only increase the number of median or higher density houses such as terrace house, apartment building, etc. within the existing urban area but also change mean housing design data that can impact building thermal performance under the local climate. Based on mean energy consumption and building design data, and their relationships of a number of Auckland sample houses, this study is to estimate the future mean housing energy consumption associated with the change of mean housing design data and evaluate housing energy efficiency with the Auckland Unitary Plan.

Keywords: Auckland Unitary Plan, building thermal design, housing design, housing energy efficiency

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22728 Recycling Carbon Fibers/Epoxy Composites Wastes in Building Materials Based on Geopolymer Binders

Authors: A. Saccani, I. Lancellotti, E. Bursi

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Scraps deriving from the production of epoxy-carbon fibers composites have been recycled as a reinforcement to produce building materials. Short chopped fibers (5-7 mm length) have been added at low volume content (max 10%) to produce mortars. The microstructure, mechanical properties (mainly flexural strength) and dimensional stability of the derived materials have been investigated. Two different types of matrix have been used: one based on conventional Portland Cement and the other containing geopolymers formed starting from activated metakaolin and fly ashes. In the second case the materials is almost completely made of recycled ingredients. This is an attempt to produce reliable materials solving waste disposal problems. The first collected results show promising results.

Keywords: building materials, carbon fibres, fly ashes, geopolymers

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22727 Arabic Handwriting Recognition Using Local Approach

Authors: Mohammed Arif, Abdessalam Kifouche

Abstract:

Optical character recognition (OCR) has a main role in the present time. It's capable to solve many serious problems and simplify human activities. The OCR yields to 70's, since many solutions has been proposed, but unfortunately, it was supportive to nothing but Latin languages. This work proposes a system of recognition of an off-line Arabic handwriting. This system is based on a structural segmentation method and uses support vector machines (SVM) in the classification phase. We have presented a state of art of the characters segmentation methods, after that a view of the OCR area, also we will address the normalization problems we went through. After a comparison between the Arabic handwritten characters & the segmentation methods, we had introduced a contribution through a segmentation algorithm.

Keywords: OCR, segmentation, Arabic characters, PAW, post-processing, SVM

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22726 Photovoltaic Solar Energy in Public Buildings: A Showcase for Society

Authors: Eliane Ferreira da Silva

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This paper aims to mobilize and sensitize public administration leaders to good practices and encourage investment in the PV system in Brazil. It presents a case study methodology for dimensioning the PV system in the roofs of the public buildings of the Esplanade of the Ministries, Brasilia, capital of the country, with predefined resources, starting with the Sustainable Esplanade Project (SEP), of the exponential growth of photovoltaic solar energy in the world and making a comparison with the solar power plant of the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME), active since: 6/10/2016. In order to do so, it was necessary to evaluate the energy efficiency of the buildings in the period from January 2016 to April 2017, (16 months) identifying the opportunities to reduce electric energy expenses, through the adjustment of contracted demand, the tariff framework and correction of existing active energy. The instrument used to collect data on electric bills was the e-SIC citizen information system. The study considered in addition to the technical and operational aspects, the historical, cultural, architectural and climatic aspects, involved by several actors. Identifying the reductions of expenses, the study directed to the following aspects: Case 1) economic feasibility for exchanges of common lamps, for LED lamps, and, Case 2) economic feasibility for the implementation of photovoltaic solar system connected to the grid. For the case 2, PV*SOL Premium Software was used to simulate several possibilities of photovoltaic panels, analyzing the best performance, according to local characteristics, such as solar orientation, latitude, annual average solar radiation. A simulation of an ideal photovoltaic solar system was made, with due calculations of its yield, to provide a compensation of the energy expenditure of the building - or part of it - through the use of the alternative source in question. The study develops a methodology for public administration, as a major consumer of electricity, to act in a responsible, fiscalizing and incentive way in reducing energy waste, and consequently reducing greenhouse gases.

Keywords: energy efficiency, esplanade of ministries, photovoltaic solar energy, public buildings, sustainable building

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22725 Modern Methods of Construction (MMC): The Potentials and Challenges of Using Prefabrication Technology for Building Modern Houses in Afghanistan

Authors: Latif Karimi, Yasuhide Mochida

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The purpose of this paper is to study Modern Methods of Construction (MMC); specifically, the prefabrication technology and check the applicability, suitability, and benefits of this construction technique over conventional methods for building new houses in Afghanistan. Construction industry and house building sector are a key contributor to Afghanistan’s economy. However, this sector is challenged with lack of innovation and severe impacts that it has on the environment due to huge amount of construction waste from building, demolition and or renovation activities. This paper studies the prefabrication technology, a popular MMC that is becoming more common, improving in quality and being available in a variety of budgets. Several feasibility studies worldwide have revealed that this method is the way forward in improving construction industry performance as it has been proven to reduce construction time, construction wastes and improve the environmental performance of the construction processes. In addition, this study emphasizes on 'sustainability' in-house building, since it is a common challenge in housing construction projects on a global scale. This challenge becomes more severe in the case of under-developed countries, like Afghanistan. Because, most of the houses are being built in the absence of a serious quality control mechanism and dismissive to basic requirements of sustainable houses; well-being, cost-effectiveness, minimization - prevention of wastes production during construction and use, and severe environmental impacts in view of a life cycle assessment. Methodology: A literature review and study of the conventional practices of building houses in urban areas of Afghanistan. A survey is also being completed to study the potentials and challenges of using prefabrication technology for building modern houses in the cities across the country. A residential housing project is selected for case study to determine the drawbacks of current construction methods vs. prefabrication technique for building a new house. Originality: There are little previous research available about MMC considering its specific impacts on sustainability related to house building practices. This study will be specifically of interest to a broad range of people, including planners, construction managers, builders, and house owners.

Keywords: modern methods of construction (MMC), prefabrication, prefab houses, sustainable construction, modern houses

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22724 Sustainable Design for Building Envelope in Hot Climates: A Case Study for the Role of the Dome as a Component of an Envelope in Heat Exchange

Authors: Akeel Noori Almulla Hwaish

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Architectural design is influenced by the actual thermal behaviour of building components, and this in turn depends not only on their steady and periodic thermal characteristics, but also on exposure effects, orientation, surface colour, and climatic fluctuations at the given location. Design data and environmental parameters should be produced in an accurate way for specified locations, so that architects and engineers can confidently apply them in their design calculations that enable precise evaluation of the influence of various parameters relating to each component of the envelope, which indicates overall thermal performance of building. The present paper will be carried out with an objective of thermal behaviour assessment and characteristics of the opaque and transparent parts of one of the very unique components used as a symbolic distinguished element of building envelope, its thermal behaviour under the impact of solar temperatures, and its role in heat exchange related to a specific U-value of specified construction materials alternatives. The research method will consider the specified Hot-Dry weather and new mosque in Baghdad, Iraq as a case study. Also, data will be presented in light of the criteria of indoor thermal comfort in terms of design parameters and thermal assessment for a“model dome”. Design alternatives and considerations of energy conservation, will be discussed as well using comparative computer simulations. Findings will be incorporated to outline the conclusions clarifying the important role of the dome in heat exchange of the whole building envelope for approaching an indoor thermal comfort level and further research in the future.

Keywords: building envelope, sustainable design, dome impact, hot-climates, heat exchange

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22723 Analyzing the Connection between Productive Structure and Communicable Diseases: An Econometric Panel Study

Authors: Julio Silva, Lia Hasenclever, Gilson G. Silva Jr.

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The aim of this paper is to check possible convergence in health measures (aged-standard rate of morbidity and mortality) for communicable diseases between developed and developing countries, conditional to productive structures features. Understanding the interrelations between health patterns and economic development is particularly important in the context of low- and middle-income countries, where economic development comes along with deep social inequality. Developing countries with less diversified productive structures (measured through complexity index) but high heterogeneous inter-sectorial labor productivity (using as a proxy inter-sectorial coefficient of variation of labor productivity) has on average low health levels in communicable diseases compared to developed countries with high diversified productive structures and low labor market heterogeneity. Structural heterogeneity and productive diversification may have influence on health levels even considering per capita income. We set up a panel data for 139 countries from 1995 to 2015, joining several data about the countries, as economic development, health, and health system coverage, environmental and socioeconomic aspects. This information was obtained from World Bank, International Labour Organization, Atlas of Economic Complexity, United Nation (Development Report) and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation Database. Econometric panel models evidence shows that the level of communicable diseases has a positive relationship with structural heterogeneity, even considering other factors as per capita income. On the other hand, the recent process of convergence in terms of communicable diseases have been motivated for other reasons not directly related to productive structure, as health system coverage and environmental aspects. These evidences suggest a joint dynamics between the unequal distribution of communicable diseases and countries' productive structure aspects. These set of evidence are quite important to public policy as meet the health aims in Millennium Development Goals. It also highlights the importance of the process of structural change as fundamental to shift the levels of health in terms of communicable diseases and can contribute to the debate between the relation of economic development and health patterns changes.

Keywords: economic development, inequality, population health, structural change

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22722 Indoor Microclimate in a Historic Library: Considerations on the Positive Effect of Historic Books on the Stability of Indoor Relative Humidity

Authors: Magda Posani, Maria Do Rosario Veiga, Vasco Peixoto De Freitas

Abstract:

The presented research considers the hygrothermal data acquired in the municipal library of Porto. The library is housed in an XVIII century convent and, among all the rooms in the construction, one, in particular, was chosen for the monitoring campaign because of the presence of a great number of historic books. Temperature and relative humidity, as well as CO₂ concentration, were measured for six consecutive months, in the period December 24th - June 24th. The indoor environment of the building is controlled with a heating and cooling system that is turned on only during the opening hours of the library. The ventilation rate is low because the windows are kept closed, and there is no forced ventilation. The micro-climate is analyzed in terms of users’ comfort and degradation risks for historic books and valuable building surfaces. Through a comparison between indoor and outdoor measured hygrothermal data, indoor relative humidity appears very stable. The influence of the hygroscopicity of books on the stabilization of indoor relative humidity is therefore investigated in detail. The paper finally discusses the benefits given by the presence of historic books in libraries with intermittent heating and cooling. The possibility of obtaining a comfortable and stable indoor climate with low use of HVAC systems in these conditions, while avoiding degradation risks for books and historic building components, is further debated.

Keywords: books, historic buildings, hygroscopicity, relative humidity

Procedia PDF Downloads 152
22721 Real Energy Performance Study of Large-Scale Solar Water Heater by Using Remote Monitoring

Authors: F. Sahnoune, M. Belhamel, M. Zelmat

Abstract:

Solar thermal systems available today provide reliability, efficiency and significant environmental benefits. In housing, they can satisfy the hot water demand and reduce energy bills by 60 % or more. Additionally, collective systems or large scale solar thermal systems are increasingly used in different conditions for hot water applications and space heating in hotels and multi-family homes, hospitals, nursing homes and sport halls as well as in commercial and industrial building. However, in situ real performance data for collective solar water heating systems has not been extensively outlined. This paper focuses on the study of real energy performances of a collective solar water heating system using the remote monitoring technique in Algerian climatic conditions. This is to ensure proper operation of the system at any time, determine the system performance and to check to what extent solar performance guarantee can be achieved. The measurements are performed on an active indirect heating system of 12 m2 flat plate collector’s surface installed in Algiers and equipped with a various sensors. The sensors transmit measurements to a local station which controls the pumps, valves, electrical auxiliaries, etc. The simulation of the installation was developed using the software SOLO 2000. The system provides a yearly solar yield of 6277.5 KWh for an estimated annual need of 7896 kWh; the yearly average solar cover rate amounted to 79.5%. The productivity is in the order of 523.13 kWh / m²/year. Simulation results are compared to measured results and to guaranteed solar performances. The remote monitoring shows that 90% of the expected solar results can be easy guaranteed on a long period. Furthermore, the installed remote monitoring unit was able to detect some dysfunctions. It follows that remote monitoring is an important tool in energy management of some building equipment.

Keywords: large-scale solar water heater, real energy performance, remote monitoring, solar performance guarantee, tool to promote solar water heater

Procedia PDF Downloads 243
22720 Reduce the Environmental Impacts of the Intensive Use of Glass in New Buildings in Khartoum, Sudan

Authors: Sawsan Domi

Abstract:

Khartoum is considering as one of the hottest cities all over the world, the mean monthly outdoor temperature remains above 30 ºC. Solar Radiation on Building Surfaces considered within the world highest values. Buildings in Khartoum is receiving huge amounts of watts/m2. Northern, eastern and western facades always receive a greater amount than the south ones. Therefore, these facades of the building must be better protected than the others. One of the most important design limits affecting indoor thermal comfort and energy conservation are building envelope design, self-efficiency in building materials and optical and thermo-physical properties of the building envelope. A small sun-facing glazing area is very important to provide thermal comfort in hot dry climates because of the intensive sunshine. This study aims to propose a work plan to help minimize the negative environmental effect of the climate on buildings taking the intensive use of glazing. In the last 15 years, there was a rapid growth in building sector in Khartoum followed by many of wrong strategies getting away of being environmental friendly. The intensive use of glazing on facades increased to commercial, industrial and design aspects, while the glass envelope led to quick increase in temperature by the reflection affects the sun on faces, cars and bodies. Logically, being transparent by using glass give a sense of open spaces, allowing natural lighting and sometimes natural ventilation keeping dust and insects away. In the other hand, it costs more and give more overheated. And this is unsuitable for a hot dry climate city like Khartoum. Many huge projects permitted every year from the Ministry of Planning in Khartoum state, with a design based on the intensive use of glazing on facades. There are no Laws or Regulations to control using materials in construction, the last building code -building code 2008- Khartoum state- only focused in using sustainable materials with no consider to any environmental aspects. Results of the study will help increase the awareness for architects, engineers and public about this environmentally problem. Objectives vary between Improve energy performance in buildings and Provide high levels of thermal comfort in the inner environment. As a future project, what are the changes that can happen in building permits codes and regulations. There could be recommendations for the governmental sector such as Obliging the responsible authorities to version environmental friendly laws in building construction fields and Support Renewable energy sector in buildings.

Keywords: building envelope, building regulations, glazed facades, solar radiation

Procedia PDF Downloads 219
22719 Estimation of Hysteretic Damping in Steel Dual Systems with Buckling Restrained Brace and Moment Resisting Frame

Authors: Seyed Saeid Tabaee, Omid Bahar

Abstract:

Nowadays, using energy dissipation devices has been commonly used in structures. A high rate of energy absorption during earthquakes is the benefit of using such devices, which results in damage reduction of structural elements specifically columns. The hysteretic damping capacity of energy dissipation devices is the key point that it may adversely complicate analysis and design of such structures. This effect may be generally represented by equivalent viscous damping. The equivalent viscous damping may be obtained from the expected hysteretic behavior under the design or maximum considered displacement of a structure. In this paper, the hysteretic damping coefficient of a steel moment resisting frame (MRF), which its performance is enhanced by a buckling restrained brace (BRB) system has been evaluated. Having the foresight of damping fraction between BRB and MRF is inevitable for seismic design procedures like Direct Displacement-Based Design (DDBD) method. This paper presents an approach to calculate the damping fraction for such systems by carrying out the dynamic nonlinear time history analysis (NTHA) under harmonic loading, which is tuned to the natural frequency of the system. Two steel moment frame structures, one equipped with BRB, and the other without BRB are simultaneously studied. The extensive analysis shows that proportion of each system damping fraction may be calculated by its shear story portion. In this way, the contribution of each BRB in the floors and their general contribution in the structural performance may be clearly recognized, in advance.

Keywords: buckling restrained brace, direct displacement based design, dual systems, hysteretic damping, moment resisting frames

Procedia PDF Downloads 434
22718 Ion Thruster Grid Lifetime Assessment Based on Its Structural Failure

Authors: Juan Li, Jiawen Qiu, Yuchuan Chu, Tianping Zhang, Wei Meng, Yanhui Jia, Xiaohui Liu

Abstract:

This article developed an ion thruster optic system sputter erosion depth numerical 3D model by IFE-PIC (Immersed Finite Element-Particle-in-Cell) and Mont Carlo method, and calculated the downstream surface sputter erosion rate of accelerator grid; Compared with LIPS-200 life test data, the results of the numerical model are in reasonable agreement with the measured data. Finally, we predict the lifetime of the 20cm diameter ion thruster via the erosion data obtained with the model. The ultimate result demonstrates that under normal operating condition, the erosion rate of the grooves wears on the downstream surface of the accelerator grid is 34.6μm⁄1000h, which means the conservative lifetime until structural failure occurring on the accelerator grid is 11500 hours.

Keywords: ion thruster, accelerator gird, sputter erosion, lifetime assessment

Procedia PDF Downloads 563
22717 Effect of Oxygen Ion Irradiation on the Structural, Spectral and Optical Properties of L-Arginine Acetate Single Crystals

Authors: N. Renuka, R. Ramesh Babu, N. Vijayan

Abstract:

Ion beams play a significant role in the process of tuning the properties of materials. Based on the radiation behavior, the engineering materials are categorized into two different types. The first one comprises organic solids which are sensitive to the energy deposited in their electronic system and the second one comprises metals which are insensitive to the energy deposited in their electronic system. However, exposure to swift heavy ions alters this general behavior. Depending on the mass, kinetic energy and nuclear charge, an ion can produce modifications within a thin surface layer or it can penetrate deeply to produce long and narrow distorted area along its path. When a high energetic ion beam impinges on a material, it causes two different types of changes in the material due to the columbic interaction between the target atom and the energetic ion beam: (i) inelastic collisions of the energetic ion with the atomic electrons of the material; and (ii) elastic scattering from the nuclei of the atoms of the material, which is extremely responsible for relocating the atoms of matter from their lattice position. The exposure of the heavy ions renders the material return to equilibrium state during which the material undergoes surface and bulk modifications which depends on the mass of the projectile ion, physical properties of the target material, its energy, and beam dimension. It is well established that electronic stopping power plays a major role in the defect creation mechanism provided it exceeds a threshold which strongly depends on the nature of the target material. There are reports available on heavy ion irradiation especially on crystalline materials to tune their physical and chemical properties. L-Arginine Acetate [LAA] is a potential semi-organic nonlinear optical crystal and its optical, mechanical and thermal properties have already been reported The main objective of the present work is to enhance or tune the structural and optical properties of LAA single crystals by heavy ion irradiation. In the present study, a potential nonlinear optical single crystal, L-arginine acetate (LAA) was grown by slow evaporation solution growth technique. The grown LAA single crystal was irradiated with oxygen ions at the dose rate of 600 krad and 1M rad in order to tune the structural and optical properties. The structural properties of pristine and oxygen ions irradiated LAA single crystals were studied using Powder X- ray diffraction and Fourier Transform Infrared spectral studies which reveal the structural changes that are generated due to irradiation. Optical behavior of pristine and oxygen ions irradiated crystals is studied by UV-Vis-NIR and photoluminescence analyses. From this investigation we can concluded that oxygen ions irradiation modifies the structural and optical properties of LAA single crystals.

Keywords: heavy ion irradiation, NLO single crystal, photoluminescence, X-ray diffractometer

Procedia PDF Downloads 254
22716 Developers’ Gains and Losses from the Economic Incentives of Green Building: Explanations from the Transitional Gains Trap and Transaction Cost Economics

Authors: Ke Fan, Edwin H. W. Chan

Abstract:

Economic incentives of green building (GB) have been implemented to promote green building and address the market barriers. However, if developers could gain from the incentives, why not all the buildings are green? This paper aims to study this problem and provide a new perspective to look at the economic incentives. The theories of Transitional Gains Trap (TGP) and Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) are employed to explain the developers’ gains and losses from the economic incentives. This paper takes the GFA (gross floor area) concession incentive in Hong Kong, which is one of the most popular incentives, as the case to conduct in-depth case study and it did interview to validate the results. The results show that after implementing the GFA concession scheme, the benefit of the GFA concession is capitalized into land value. Therefore, developers have to bear the increased land cost, which supports the theory of the TGP. Even though, some developers are still not willing to participate in the incentive scheme because of high transaction costs (TCs).

Keywords: green building, economic incentives, transitional gains trap, transaction cost

Procedia PDF Downloads 290