High-Performance Integrated Window and Façade Solutions for California

The researchers developed a new generation of high-performance façade systems and supporting design and management tools to support industry in meeting California’s greenhouse gas reduction targets, reduce energy consumption, and enable an adaptable response to minimize real-time demands on the electricity grid. The project resulted in five outcomes: (1) The research team developed an R-5, 1-inch thick, triplepane, insulating glass unit with a novel low-conductance aluminum frame. This technology can help significantly reduce residential cooling and heating loads, particularly during the evening. (2) The team developed a prototype of a windowintegrated local ventilation and energy recovery device that provides clean, dry fresh air through the façade with minimal energy requirements. (3) A daylight-redirecting louver system was prototyped to redirect sunlight 15–40 feet from the window. Simulations estimated that lighting energy use could be reduced by 35–54 percent without glare. (4) A control system incorporating physics-based equations and a mathematical solver was prototyped and field tested to demonstrate feasibility. Simulations estimated that total electricity costs could be reduced by 9-28 percent on sunny summer days through adaptive control of operable shading and daylighting components and the thermostat compared to state-of-the-art automatic façade controls in commercial building perimeter zones. (5) Supporting models and tools needed by industry for technology R&D and market transformation activities were validated. Attaining California’s clean energy goals require making a fundamental shift from today’s ad-hoc assemblages of static components to turnkey, intelligent, responsive, integrated building façade systems. These systems offered significant reductions in energy use, peak demand, and operating cost in California

Management and communication of HVAC-specific life cycle-related information - filling the gaps for sustainability assessment of buildings

Assessing the contribution of buildings to sustainable development is no longer just a matter of scientific investigation. Increasingly, such considerations are becoming a prerequisite for the award of subsidies or the fulfillment of legal requirements. One aspect is the evaluation of the environmental performance, based on a life cycle assessment of the complete building in its life cycle. This requires corresponding data on all installed products (materials, components, systems) on a consistent methodological basis and suitable communication forms. To that, information is required on technical characteristics and the life cycle assessment results of construction products. Thereby the following problems are occurring: (1) there are not enough environmental product declarations according to EN 15804 A2 available in the field of building services systems (e.g. HVAC) and (2) the data contained in EPDs do not fully cover the information needs of designers and decision-makers. This complicates the work of involved actors and endangers the competitiveness of product suppliers. In response, a proposal for a product information system for building services is presented. It is adapted to the specifics of HVAC systems and the information needs of related actors. The background is the situation in Germany, but results can be transferred to other countries / markets

Affordable heat: A whole-buildings efficiency service for Vermont families and businesses

Policy Leadership Initiative Year III Addressing Energy Challenges for Low-income Families in Northern New Englan

Qualification of academic facilities for small-scale automated manufacture of autologous cell-based products

Academic centres, hospitals and small companies, as typical development settings for UK regenerative medicine assets, are significant contributors to the development of autologous cell-based therapies. Often lacking the appropriate funding, quality assurance heritage or specialist regulatory expertise, qualifying aseptic cell processing facilities for Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) compliance is a significant challenge. The qualification of a new Cell Therapy Manufacturing Facility (CTMF) with automated processing capability, the first of its kind in a UK academic setting, provides a unique demonstrator for the qualification of small-scale, automated facilities for GMP compliant manufacture of autologous cell-based products in these settings. This paper shares our experiences in qualifying the CTMF, focussing on our approach to streamlining the qualification effort, the challenges, project delays and inefficiencies we encountered and the subsequent lessons learned

Integrating BIM with building performance analysis in project life-cycle

Adopting Building Information Modelling (BIM) in Building Performance Analysis (BPA) is becoming an emerging research area in the application of information technology in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry. To investigate the current state of research in the adoption of BIM in BPA, this study performed a holistic review consisting of a bibliometric analysis of existing literature, content analysis of selected studies, as well as follow-up qualitative discussion in BIM integration with BPA. The bibliometric analysis identified 60 relevant studies; the content analysis of these studies revealed the research focuses of BIM-enabled BPA, including interoperability, semantics, and sustainability rating systems; the qualitative discussion further highlighted the learning process throughout project delivery stages and addressed the potential gap between ‘as-designed’ building performance and ‘as-built’ performance. Overall, this study contributes to existing research by identifying key input attributes and workflow in BPA, reviewing the state-of-the-art research on BIM integration with BPA, and investigating the major research areas, namely, interoperability issues in BIM-enabled BPA within the context of life-cycle BPA

Integrating BIM with building performance analysis in project life-cycle

Adopting Building Information Modelling (BIM) in Building Performance Analysis (BPA) is becoming an emerging research area in the application of information technology in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry. To investigate the current state of research in the adoption of BIM in BPA, this study performed a holistic review consisting of a bibliometric analysis of existing literature, content analysis of selected studies, as well as follow-up qualitative discussion in BIM integration with BPA. The bibliometric analysis identified 60 relevant studies; the content analysis of these studies revealed the research focuses of BIM-enabled BPA, including interoperability, semantics, and sustainability rating systems; the qualitative discussion further highlighted the learning process throughout project delivery stages and addressed the potential gap between ‘as-designed’ building performance and ‘as-built’ performance. Overall, this study contributes to existing research by identifying key input attributes and workflow in BPA, reviewing the state-of-the-art research on BIM integration with BPA, and investigating the major research areas, namely, interoperability issues in BIM-enabled BPA within the context of life-cycle BPA

Lean Management Framework for Healthcare Facilities Integrating BIM, BEPS and Big Data Analytics

An increase in the usage of information and communication technologies (ICT) and the Internet of Things (IoT) in Facility Management (FM) induces a huge data stack. Even though these data bring opportunities such as cost savings, time savings, increase in user comfort, space optimization, energy savings, inventory management, etc., these data sources cannot be managed and manipulated effectively to increase efficiency at the FM stage. In addition to data management issues, FM practices, or developed solutions, need to be supported with the implementation of lean management philosophy to reveal organizational and managerial wastes. In the literature, some researchers performed studies about awareness about building information modeling (BIM)-FM, and FM-related data management problems in terms of lean philosophy. However, the comprehensive solution for effective FM has not been investigated with the application of lean management philosophy yet. Therefore, this study aims to develop an FM framework for healthcare facilities by considering lean management philosophy since more stable workflow, continuous improvement, and creating more value to customers will help to deliver a more acceptable solution for the FM industry. Within this context, the integration of BIM, Building Energy Performance Simulations, and Big Data Analytics are proposed as a solution. In the study, the Design Science Research (DSR) methodology was followed to develop the FM framework. Depending on the DSR methodology, two scenarios were used to investigate the issue in a real healthcare facility and develop the FM framework. The developed framework was evaluated by four experts, and the revisions of the proposed framework were realized