538 research outputs found
Building Performance Simulation and Characterization of Adaptive Facades – Adaptive Facade Network
No full textThe book “Performance Simulation and Characterisation of Adaptive Facades” responds to the need of providing a general framework, standardised and recognised methods and tools to evaluate the performance of adaptive facades in a quantitative way, by means of numerical and experimental
methods, in different domains of interest. This book represents the main outcome of the activities of the Working Group 2 of the COST Action TU1403 Adaptive Façades Network, “Components performance and characterisation methods”, by integrating in one publication the main deliverables of WG2 described in the Memorandum of Understanding: D 2.1. Report on current adaptive facades modelling techniques; D 2.4. Report on the validation of developed simulation tools and models; D 2.5. Report on the developed experimental procedures.
These are extended by additional sections regarding structural aspects and key performance indicators for adaptive façade systems.
This book is a comprehensive review of different areas of research on adaptive façade systems and provides both general and specific knowledge about numerical and experimental research methods in this field. The fast pace at which building technologies and materials develop, is slowly but constantly followed by the development of numerical and experimental methods and tools to quantify their performance. Therefore this book focuses primarily on general methods and requirements, in an attempt to provide a coherent picture of current and near future possibilities to simulate and characterise the performance of adaptive facades in different domains, which could remain relevant in the coming years. In addition, specific know-how on selected cases is also presented, as a way to clarify and apply the more general approaches and methods described.
The present book is published to support practitioners, researchers and students who are interested in designing, researching, and integrating adaptive façade systems in buildings. It targets both the academic and the not-academic sectors, and intends to contribute positively to an increased market penetration of adaptive façade systems, components and materials, aimed at rationalising energy and material resources while achieving a high standard of indoor environmental quality, health and safety in the built environment
Structural Characterisation and Performance Assessment
No full textModern adaptive facades can significantly improve energy and thus cost, efficiency of both new and refurbished buildings by responding to
the changes in the outdoor conditions. Furthermore, they can provide healthy and comfortable indoor environment to the building occupants, by
adjusting the response to their needs.
As the main function of facades is to separate the indoor from the outdoor environment, their performance has a major impact to the building’s energy usage is extremely important for reaching the European Commission’s ambitious climate and energy targets by 2020, as well as to follow the 2050 energy roadmap goals.
However, another important function of facades is to transfer various design loads (to the building skeleton) and to accommodate movements due to the same actions,
being characterized by different features as in the case of self-weight, wind, earthquake loads, as well as thermal actions, extreme mechanical loads, etc.
Depending on the type and level of adaptivity of a given facade, such a structural demand could lead to challenges during the overall design process.
On the other hand, structural adaptivity can lead to a more efficient static and dynamic response under varying loading conditions, i.e. increase resistance in case of
extreme events and/or provide fail-safe collapse mechanisms, thereby enhancing structural robustness.
This document collects some major outcomes and feedback from the “Structural” Task Group within the WG2 - COST Action TU1403
Ten questions concerning co-simulation for performance prediction of advanced building envelopes
Get PDFAdvanced building envelopes (ABEs) are innovative integrated systems that aim to increase the sustainability of buildings by providing flexible and efficient energy management solutions while safeguarding healthy and comfortable indoor environments. These building envelopes operate at the cross-section of architecture, engineering and data science, often involving transient multi-physical parameters and advanced material properties. The development of ABEs has increasingly relied on building performance simulation (BPS) tools to improve the understanding and management of their complex interrelationships. However, this complexity has sometimes shown to constitute barriers for their real-world implementation, in part caused by the limitations of monolithic legacy BPS tools. One of the most promising alternatives to overcoming these difficulties has been to use cosimulation. Co-simulation allows modelers to use multiple sub-models and link them to enable simultaneous data exchange during simulation runtime. This approach provides added possibilities for implementing advanced control strategies, integrating innovative data-driven inputs, and creating collaborative interdisciplinary and evolutive workflows for building envelopes at different stages and scales in projects. This article provides a critical overview of the possibilities that co-simulation approaches offer to improve performance assessments of advanced building envelopes. This article also presents current barriers to cosimulation and discusses critical elements to overcome them. Ongoing trends in BPS and information and communication technologies are highlighted, emphasizing how they transform the field and create new opportunities for modelers working in research and industry.publishedVersio
Review of current status, requirements and opportunities for building performance simulation of adaptive facades†
Get PDFAdaptive building envelope systems have the potential of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving the energy flexibility of buildings, while maintaining high levels of indoor environmental quality. The development of such innovative materials and technologies, as well as their real-world implementation, can be enhanced with the use of building performance simulation (BPS). Performance prediction of adaptive facades can, however, be a challenging task and the information on this topic is scarce and fragmented. The main contribution of this review article is to bring together and analyse the existing information in this field. In the first part, the unique requirements for successful modelling and simulation of adaptive facades are discussed. In the second part, the capabilities of five widely used BPS tools are reviewed, in terms of their ability to model energy and occupant comfort performance of adaptive facades. Finally, it discusses various ongoing trends and research needs in this field
Advanced fenestration—technologies, performance and building integration
No full textAdvanced fenestration systems (AFS) can respond to baseline functionalities and requirements in the remit of the transparent part of the building envelope (eg, reducing heat transfer, solar control and providing view out) and can combine these to a higher level of functionality aimed at providing an occupant with excellent indoor conditions while improving building performance toward building sustainability objectives. This full set of possible wished functionalities include providing view out/privacy; managing solar radiation; managing glare/daylight; managing and/or controlling heat transfer; increasing thermal storage; managing airflow; and facilitating energy generation. The present chapter provides an overview of different market available advanced fenestration components and systems highlighting (1) the main features while providing some examples of commercial products and solutions still in the R&D stage; (2) the increased building performance and functionalities achieved; and (3) the challenges for broader market adoption. Finally, an overview is provided regarding the challenges and requirements for performance evaluation of AFS, with the aim to support decision-making for design and operation of AFS
Investigating Advanced Building Envelopes for Energy Efficiency in Prefab Temporary Post-Disaster Housing
Get PDFPrefabricated temporary buildings are a promising solution for post-disaster scenarios for their modularity, sustainability and transportation advantages. However, their low thermal mass building envelope shows a fast response to heat flux excitations. This leads to the risk of not meeting the occupant comfort and HVAC energy-saving requirements. The literature shows different measures implementable in opaque surfaces, like vacuum insulation panels (VIPs), phase change materials (PCMs) and switchable coatings, and in transparent surfaces (switchable glazing) to mitigate thermal issues, like overheating, while preserving the limited available internal space. This paper investigates the energy and overheating performance of the mentioned interventions by using building performance simulation tools to assess their effectiveness. The optimization also looks at the transportation flexibility of each intervention to better support the decision maker for manufacturing innovative temporary units. The most energy-efficient measures turn to be VIPs as a better energy solution for winter and PCMs as a better thermal comfort solution for summer
Towards New Metrics for the Characterisation of the Dynamic Performance of Adaptive Façade Systems
Get PDFTraditional façade characterisation metrics such as U-value and g-value are of limited value in the design process of buildings with adaptive façades. This issue is particularly important for adaptive façade components that have the capability of controlling thermal energy storage in the construction thermal mass. Building performance simulations can help to analyse the performance of buildings with adaptive façades, but such studies usually only provide information about the energy and comfort performance at room level. Consequently, there is a need for development and testing of new façade-level performance metrics that can be used to compare the performance of different adaptive façade components. This paper presents experiences and lessons learned from four European R&D projects that have introduced novel metrics to capture the dynamic performance of adaptive opaque façades. Characteristics of the different metrics are described, and their similarities and differences are compared and contrasted. The paper highlights the main benefits of metrics that can capture dynamic effects, and concludes by providing directions for future work.publishedVersionThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Author(s) hold their copyright without restrictions
A novel approach to account for shape-morphing and kinetic shading systems in building energy performance simulations
Get PDFThis paper proposes an innovative approach to analyse the energy behaviour of complex kinetic shading systems. Although several studies have analysed this topic, many are focused only on certain aspects or on simple shading systems due to a lack of tools for running reliable energy simulations on complex systems. This study aims to develop and validate a tool based on Python and EnergyPlus that can consider the continuous nature of the energy simulation and analyse complex kinetic systems. Simply providing an EnergyPlus model and a model of the shading configurations, the algorithm provides as output a comparison sheet to evaluate the performance of the system. The paper provides a description of the tools and studies focused on this topic; subsequently, a methodological insight is presented to explain the workflow, its validation, and the algorithm developed. Finally, the algorithm is tested on a case study to analyse a kinetic shading system. Abbreviations: DSF: Dynamic Shading File; EDSM: Equivalent Dynamic Shading Model; EMS: Energy Management System; ESSM: Equivalent Static Shading Model; Gf: Incident irradiance; Gf max: Incident irradiance threshold; PV: Photovoltaic; ST1/2/3: State 1/2/3; SSM: Static Shading Model; SF: Sunlit Fraction; SSF: Static Shading File; To: Outdoor temperature; To max 1/2: Outdoor temperature threshold 1/2; Tsol: Solar transmittance
Opportunities and challenges for performance prediction of dynamic complex fenestration systems (CFS)
Get PDFThis article presents an overview of possibilities and points of attention for modelling the performance of dynamic CFS in building performance simulation software. Following a detailed analysis of the unique requirements that are associated with modelling of CFS, a comparative study of the capabilities in different software implementations is presented. In addition, we present on overview of state-of-the-art approaches to obtain the necessary Bi-directional Scattering Distribution Functions (BSDF), involving experimental characterisation, databases, and component-level ray-tracing approaches. The second part of the paper provides a detailed discussion of a case study of a high reflective lamella system. This case study complements the review with hands-on information from a practical example and highlights the importance of developing models at the right level of complexity, taking into account the type of questions that the simulation intends to answer and the required accuracy level to do so
Building performance simulation and characterisation of adaptive facades – adaptive facade network
Get PDFThe book “Performance Simulation and Characterisation of Adaptive Facades” responds to the need of providing a general framework, standardised and recognised methods and tools to evaluate the performance of adaptive facades in a quantitative way, by means of numerical and experimental methods, in different domains of interest. This book represents the main outcome of the activities of the Working Group 2 of the COST Action TU1403 Adaptive Façades Network, “Components performance and characterisation methods”, by integrating in one publication the main deliverables of WG2 described in the Memorandum of Understanding: D 2.1. Report on current adaptive facades modelling techniques; D 2.4. Report on the validation of developed simulation tools and models; D 2.5. Report on the developed experimental procedures. These are extended by additional sections regarding structural aspects and key performance indicators for adaptive façade systems. This book is a comprehensive review of different areas of research on adaptive façade systems and provides both general and specific knowledge about numerical and experimental research methods in this field. The fast pace at which building technologies and materials develop, is slowly but constantly followed by the development of numerical and experimental methods and tools to quantify their performance. Therefore this book focuses primarily on general methods and requirements, in an attempt to provide a coherent picture of current and near future possibilities to simulate and characterise the performance of adaptive facades in different domains, which could remain relevant in the coming years. In addition, specific know-how on selected cases is also presented, as a way to clarify and apply the more general approaches and methods described. The present book is published to support practitioners, researchers and students who are interested in designing, researching, and integrating adaptive façade systems in buildings. It targets both the academic and the not-academic sectors, and intends to contribute positively to an increased market penetration of adaptive façade systems, components and materials, aimed at rationalising energy and material resources while achieving a high standard of indoor environmental quality, health and safety in the built environment
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