OPTIMIZING THE SELECTION OF SUSTAINABILITY MEASURES TO MINIMIZE LIFE-CYCLE COST OF EXISTING BUILDINGS

Buildings have significant impacts on the environment and economy as they were reported by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in 2009 to account for 40% of the global energy consumption. Building owners are increasingly seeking to integrate sustainability and green measures in their buildings to minimize energy and water consumption as well as life-cycle cost. Due to the large number of feasible combinations of sustainability measures, decision makers are often faced with a challenging task that requires them to identify an optimal set of upgrade measures to minimize the building life-cycle cost. This paper presents a model for optimizing the selection of building upgrade measures to minimize the life-cycle cost of existing buildings while complying with owner-specified requirements for building operational performance and budget constraints. The optimization model accounts for initial upgrade cost, operational cost and saving, escalation in utility costs, maintenance cost, replacement cost, and salvage value of building fixtures and equipment, and renewable energy systems. A case study of a rest area building in the state of Illinois in the United States was analyzed to illustrate the unique capabilities of the developed optimization model. The main findings of this analysis illustrate the capabilities of the model in identifying optimal building upgrade measures to achieve the highest savings of building life-cycle cost within a user-specified upgrade budget; and generating practical and detailed recommendations on replacing building fixtures and equipment and installing renewable energy systems.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author

Minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption of existing buildings

Buildings are responsible for 38% of all carbon emissions and 14% of water consumption in the United States. These negative environmental impacts can significantly be reduced by implementing green upgrade measures such as energy-efficient lighting and HVAC systems, motion sensors, photovoltaic systems, and water-saving plumbing fixtures. Building owners in the public and private sectors often search for an optimal set of upgrade measures that is capable of minimizing the negative environmental impacts of their buildings. This paper presents the development of an optimization model that is capable of identifying optimal selection of building upgrade measures to minimize greenhouse gas emission and water consumption of existing buildings while complying with limited upgrade budgets. The model is developed in four main development steps: metrics identification step that quantifies greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption of existing buildings; model formulation step that formulates the model decision variables, objective function, and constraints; implementation step that executes the model computations and specifies the model input and output data; and validation step that evaluates the model performance using a case study of an existing building. The results of the model illustrate its new and unique capabilities in providing detailed results, which include specifications for the recommended upgrade measures, their location in the building, and required upgrade cost to minimize greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption of existing buildings.Non UBCUnreviewedFacultyOthe

Implementing a collaboration activity in construction engineering education

Collaboration skills are increasingly necessary in today’s construction workforce. However, classroom activities that incorporate collaboration skills, ones involving interactive work among individuals towards a common goal, are underrepresented in many construction classes. This research documents and illuminates implementation of a team activity where groups of interdisciplinary students were asked to build a structure using the provided (paper and tape) resources with the objectives to create a structure that stands at least 4” tall and supports as much weight (under textbook loading) as possible. Two rounds of activities were performed with differing levels of role definition provided to the students. Team interactions and performance were recorded, along with student self-assessments, and reporter observation. The implementation of this collaboration activity continues to provide valuable lessons, which informs the integration and assessment of collaboration activities in construction education.Non UBCUnreviewedFacultyOthe

Energy Star windows' performance and orientation

In 2012 and 2013, ten building product categories were eligible for United States ENERGY STAR Federal Tax Credits. High performance windows that meet certain energy efficiency criteria are one of the qualifying products. The ENERGY STAR Tax Credit program sets U-factor and Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC) standards for these windows according to four climate zones. Research demonstrates that buildings with well-designed and constructed fenestration systems can lower requirements for heating, cooling and lighting during operation. However, previous research and energy modeling also demonstrates that, in addition to energy efficiency characteristics, orientation impacts the energy performance of windows. The ENERGY STAR tax program makes no distinction regarding window orientation or placement when evaluating tax credit eligibility. This research studies the potential impact of orientation on performance for qualifying ENERGY STAR window products. Using TRNSYS energy modeling comparisons, findings suggest that the performance of qualifying windows may vary up to 14 percent for different orientations depending on climate zone.Non UBCUnreviewedFacultyOthe