Building thermal performance, extreme heat, and climate change

The leading source of weather-related deaths in the United States is heat, and future projections show that the frequency, duration, and intensity of heat events will increase in the Southwest. Presently, there is a dearth of knowledge about how infrastructure may perform during heat waves or could contribute to social vulnerability. To understand how buildings perform in heat and potentially stress people, indoor air temperature changes when air conditioning is inaccessible are modeled for building archetypes in Los Angeles, California, and Phoenix, Arizona, when air conditioning is inaccessible is estimated. An energy simulation model is used to estimate how quickly indoor air temperature changes when building archetypes are exposed to extreme heat. Building age and geometry (which together determine the building envelope material composition) are found to be the strongest indicators of thermal envelope performance. Older neighborhoods in Los Angeles and Phoenix (often more centrally located in the metropolitan areas) are found to contain the buildings whose interiors warm the fastest, raising particular concern because these regions are also forecast to experience temperature increases. To combat infrastructure vulnerability and provide heat refuge for residents, incentives should be adopted to strategically retrofit buildings where both socially vulnerable populations reside and increasing temperatures are forecast

Big data for smart operations and maintenance of buildings

The trend in industry to move towards smart buildings will in turn necessitate the move to smart operations and maintenance. As buildings lifecycle continues for a number of decades, various data about performance and operations need to be captured. There are various smart data collection tools available such as: mobile devices, social media, smart meters, sensors, satellites, camera footage, traffic flow reports, etc.. The analysis of the collected data can provide huge feedback for better buildings management. This research aims to adopt the concept of Big Data to capture the information and the knowledge of buildings operations; particularly for building maintenance and refurbishment. With the use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) systems to store various structured data of buildings, the unstructured data for various buildings operations will be also captured. For this purpose, a new system is proposed that integrates cloud-based Spoken Dialogue System (SDS), case-based reasoning, and BIM system. The proposed smart system acts as an interactive expert agent that seeks answers from buildings managers/users about building maintenance problems and help searching for solutions from previously stored knowledge cases. Capturing multi-modes data into BIM systems using the cloud-based spoken dialogue systems can utilise the high volume of data generated over building lifecycle. This can help design and operation teams to manage buildings, spaces, and services more efficiently. The data capture tools (including SDS) provide granular real-time data about utilization patterns which can improve the maintenance of buildings services and operations

Time indeterminacy and spatio-temporal building transformations: an approach for architectural heritage understanding

Nowadays most digital reconstructions in architecture and archeology describe buildings heritage as awhole of static and unchangeable entities. However, historical sites can have a rich and complex history, sometimes full of evolutions, sometimes only partially known by means of documentary sources. Various aspects condition the analysis and the interpretation of cultural heritage. First of all, buildings are not inexorably constant in time: creation, destruction, union, division, annexation, partial demolition and change of function are the transformations that buildings can undergo over time. Moreover, other factors sometimes contradictory can condition the knowledge about an historical site, such as historical sources and uncertainty. On one hand, historical documentation concerning past states can be heterogeneous, dubious, incomplete and even contradictory. On the other hand, uncertainty is prevalent in cultural heritage in various forms: sometimes it is impossible to define the dating period, sometimes the building original shape or yet its spatial position. This paper proposes amodeling approach of the geometrical representation of buildings, taking into account the kind of transformations and the notion of temporal indetermination

ENGINEERING STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY IN THE REHABILITATION OF BUILDINGS: A CASE STUDY

The purpose of this case study is to analyse the perceptions and knowledge of university students, regarding the implementation of proper practices, towards a high level of sustainability of rehabilitated buildings. During 2016-17, a group of twenty-one students attended “Pathologies and Rehabilitation of Buildings”, a third-year subject of a Portuguese Civil Engineering course, which aims to deepen the knowledge that will allow students to use sustainable practices in old buildings in need of rehabilitation. Qualitative and quantitative data was collected from observation and analysis of the rehabilitation process of a building located in the city of Porto, Portugal, as well as from the analysis of a questionnaire about how this practical activity has enriched students´ technical experience. The results indicate students’ increasing awareness regarding the importance of practical knowledge about building rehabilitation, using sustainability criteria to transform highly deteriorated buildings into spaces whose dwellers can achieve an easier integration at the environmental, social and economic levels. Nevertheless, it should be noted that only a few students reveal deeper knowledge of the building pathologies, of which the most common are humidity infiltrations and the lack of thermal insulation. The results of the case study will be used to improve teaching practice in this university course and to increase students´ practical application of sustainable rehabilitation concepts to the built environment. In this way, the establishment of the effectiveness of an active pedagogy, in order to prepare future engineers, capable of leading a building rehabilitation sustainable process, was a driving factor in this study

Application Of Fuzzy Mathematics Methods To Processing Geometric Parameters Of Degradation Of Building Structures

The aim of research is formalization of the expert experience, which is used in processing geometric parameters of building structure degradation, using fuzzy mathematics. Materials that are used to specify fuzzy models are contained in expert assessments and scientific and technical reports on the technical condition of buildings. The information contained in the reports and assessments is presented in text form and is accompanied by a large number of photographs and diagrams. Model specification methods, based on the analysis of such information on the technical state of structures with damages and defects of various types, primarily lead to difficulties associated with the presentation of knowledge and require the formalization of expert knowledge and experience in the form of fuzzy rules. Approbation and adaptation of the rules is carried out in the process of further research taking into account the influence of random loads and fields. The scientific novelty of the work is expanding of the knowledge base due to the geometric parameters of structural degradation, on the basis of which a fuzzy conclusion about their technical state in the systems of fuzzy product rules at different stages of the object's life cycle is realized. The results of the work are presented in the form of a formalized description of the geometric parameters of degradation. The knowledge presented in the work is intended for the development of technical documentation that is used at the pre-project stage of building reconstruction, but the gained experience is the source of information on the basis of which a constructive solution is selected in the design process of analogical objects. In addition, the knowledge gained from the analysis of expert assessments of the state of various designs is necessary for development of automated expert evaluation processing systems. The use of such evaluation systems will significantly reduce the risks of the human factor associated with the errors in the specification of models for predicting the processes of structural failure at various stages of ensuring the reliability and safety of buildings