Adoption of Retrofit Strategies for the Housing Sector in Northern Cyprus

This research project is undertaken in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (T.R.N.C.). The study focuses on identifying refurbishment activities capable of diagnosing and detecting the underlying problems alongside the challenges offered by the buildings’ typology in addition to identifying the correct construction materials in the refurbishment process, which allow for the maximisation of expected energy savings. The objective of the research is to investigate the occupants’ behaviour and role in the refurbishment activity by exploring how and why occupants decide to change building components and how to understand why and how occupants consider using energy-efficient measurements. The housing estates are chosen from 22 different projects in four different regions of the T.R.N.C. that include urban and suburban areas. There is, therefore, a broad representation of the common drivers in the property market, each with different levels of refurbishment activity and this is coupled with different samplings from different climatic regions within the country. The study is conducted through semi-structured interviews to identify occupants’ behaviour as it is associated with refurbishment activity. This paper presents the results of semi-structured interviews with 70 homeowners in a selected group of 22 housing estates in five different parts of the T.R.N.C. Alongside the construction process and its impact on the environment, the results point out the need for control mechanisms in the housing sector to promote and support the adoption of retrofit strategies and to minimize non-controlled refurbishment activities, in line with diagnostic information of the selected buildings. The expected solutions should be effective, environmentally acceptable and feasible, given the type of housing projects under review, with due regard for their location, the climatic conditions within which they were undertaken, the socio-economic standing of the house owners and their attitudes, local resources and legislative constraints. Furthermore, the study goes on to insist on the practical and long-term economic benefits of refurbishment under the proper conditions and why this should be fully understood by the householders

Energy Performance Development of Non-regulated Retrofit Mass Housing Estates in Northern Cyprus

This research project was undertaken in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (T.R.N.C). The objective of the research is to investigate the occupants’ behaviour and role in the refurbishment activity; to explore how and why occupants decide to change building components and to understand why and how occupants consider using energy-efficient materials. The study is conducted through semi-structured interviews to identify occupants’ behaviour as it is associated with refurbishment activity. This research paper presents the results of semi-structured interviews with 70 homeowners in a selected group of 16 housing estates in four different regions of the T.R.N.C. The expected solutions should be effective, environmentally acceptable and feasible given the type of housing projects under review, with due regard for their location, the climatic conditions within which they were undertaken, the socio-economic standing of the house owners and their attitudes, local resources and legislative constraints. Furthermore, the study goes on to insist on the practical and long-term economic benefits of refurbishment under the proper conditions and why this should be fully understood by the householders

An Investigation of Urban Process and Mass Housing Estates Development Through Topographical Formations in Urban Peripheries: A Case Study of Famagusta, Cyprus

Problems in mass housing estates in Famagusta, Cyprus, have been an issue for urban planning and policy interventions for many years. Neighbourhoods were designed featuring modernist residential tower blocks and suburban row houses with insufficient green areas and no consideration of either the climatic features of the built site or of urban planning, regulations or law. This study discusses ongoing, uncontrolled construction trying to change the contemporary urban environment, based on the features of housing and urbanism. It investigates whether the natural landscape and extensions to topography have played decisive roles in the construction of mass housing estate developments and uses of the rural periphery of this city. The study develops a base case of urban transformation models representing the morphological characteristics of buildings from three distinct construction eras (the 1970s, 1990s and 2010s). The information collected is enriched and verified by site surveys. Through three case studies, the types of buildings in each era are analysed and evaluated in relation to a number of environmental factors, including analyses of the different context layers, to ascertain the existing strength of the urban block development configurations as well as to evaluate their shortcomings under the threat of urban sprawl. The findings not only provide ground research for developing urban retrofit scenarios, but also employ sustainable planning tools based on those urban processes

Low-energy design strategies for retrofitting existing residential buildings in Cyprus

Problems on mass housing estates are currently a topic for research on energy and policy interventions in Cyprus. Modernist urban detached/semi-detached and suburban row houses often have insufficient green areas and lack consideration of the climatic features of the building site where the neighbourhoods are designed without concern for urban planning laws and regulations. These purpose-built residential building stock models represent 30% of the existing building stock. This research primarily investigates the potential of particular design interventions in detached two-storey houses in a Mediterranean climate in order to reduce the need for fossil fuel to heat and cool the houses. The aim of this study is to develop and test feasible retrofit strategies aimed at optimising the energy performance of the existing residential buildings. To accomplish this, the study first examines the energy performance of a building before and after the retrofitting phases as base case scenario models. The Autodesk Revit 2017 plug-in Green Building Studio energy performance analysis software was used for simulation of the adapted energy-efficient retrofit measures. This study also outlines the results from the prototype analysis to demonstrate the difference between a retrofitted building and the existing state of a building in their respective energy use impacts

An Analysis of the Development of Modular Building Design Elements to Improve Thermal Performance of a Representative High Rise Residential Estate in the Coastline City of Famagusta, Cyprus

Passive design strategies can reduce heating and cooling demands with integration of more efficient building systems as well as the potential to integrate modular off-site construction technology and its technical systems to offset overall energy consumption. This study evaluates the energy performance of the nationally representative post-war social housing estate in the southeastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus where the weather is subtropical (Csa) and partly semi-arid (Bsh). This study employed a mixed methods research design approach which was based on a thorough field study that consisted of a questionnaire survey conducted with residents of the social housing estate in the hottest summer month of August, to explore the occupants’ thermal sensation votes (TSVs), their habitual adaptive behaviour, and home energy performance concurrently. On-site environmental monitoring was performed, and in-situ measurements of each occupied space were recorded to identify ‘neutral’ adaptive thermal comfort. The selected representative high-rise residential development was modelled using Integrated Environmental Solutions’ Virtual Environment (IES-VE) software, where extensive dynamic thermal simulations have been produced to assess existing energy performance and energy effectiveness of retrofitting strategies. The results demonstrated that a moderate–strong relationship was found between orientation and reasons for thermal discomfort (χ2 = 49,327, p < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.405). Individual levels of thermal comfort were not limited to household socio-demographic characteristics, however; environmental factors were also determinants in the development of adaptive thermal-comfort theory. Furthermore, the occupants’ TSVs indicated that in a southeastern Mediterranean climate, 28.5 °C is considered a neutral temperature, and the upper limit of the indoor-air thermal-comfort range is 31.5 °C

A high frequency GaAlAs travelling wave electro-optic modulator at 0.82 micrometers

Experimental GaAlAs modulators operating at 0.82 micrometers using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer configuration were designed and fabricated. Coplanar 50 ohm travelling wave microwave electrodes were used to obtain a bandwidth length product of 11.95 GHz-cm. The design, fabrication and dc performance of the GaAlAs travelling wave modulator is presented

Post-Glitch RXTE-PCA Observations of the Vela Pulsar

We report the results of analysis of observations of the Vela Pulsar by PCA on RXTE. Our data consists of two parts. The first part contains observations at 1, 4, and 9 days after the glitch in 1996 and has 27000 sec. total exposure time. The second part of observations were performed three months after this glitch and have a total exposure time of 93000 sec. We found pulsations in both sets. The observed spectrum is a power-law with no apparent change in flux or count rate. The theoretical expectations of increase in flux due to internal heating after a glitch are smaller than the uncertainty of the observations.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures in 9 ps/eps files. Accepted for publication in A&A Main Journa

Recycling of Tire Waste Using Pyrolysis: An Environmental Perspective

End-of-life tires are a common and hazardous type of waste. According to estimates, over 2 billion tires are produced each year, and all of these tires will eventually be discarded as waste. Landfilling waste tires is strictly prohibited by the regulations of the European Union and the Environmental Protection Agency; they should be retreated and reused in an alternative scenario. As a waste-to-energy technology, pyrolysis, can emerge as a useful technique to thermally degrade waste tires and produce useful byproducts in the form of liquid, gas, and char. The derived products can be filtered and used in further industries as biofuel substances. Pyrolytic oil has a high calorific value of 35–45 MJ/kg and can be used as an alternative to diesel to fuel specific vehicles. However, the environmental footprint of the technology has been widely neglected when using waste tires as feedstock. Made from synthetic and natural rubbers, tires contain a high amount of sulfur and styrene, which can cause toxic emissions and negatively affect the environmental sustainability of pyrolysis. This concept paper aims to elaborate the parameters of an operating rotary kiln reactor by reviewing previous life cycle assessment studies and applying the methodology to an industrial-scale pyrolysis plant in Northern Cyprus. Results found a maximum production yield of 45.6% oil at an optimal temperature of 500 °C. Influential parameters such as temperature, residence time, and heating rate are reviewed based on their overall contribution to the production yield and the environment. The outcome of this paper emphasizes the need in the literature to apply environmental analyses to industrial and commercial-scale reactors to test the sustainability of using pyrolysis as a tire waste management strategy. In addition, complex engineering concepts and tasks in waste recycling will be discussed in a broad and accessible manner, with the implications and future work discussed

Fungal contaminants observed during micropropagation of Lilium candidum L. and the effect of chemotherapeutic substances applied after sterilization

Lilium candidum L. is a species which grows in the South West Anatolia region of Turkey. It is a bulbous plant with beautifully scented flowers and is used in the floral industry. The bulbs are produced by using traditional propagation and in vitro techniques. Micropropagation is a rapid propagation technique, but the greatest problem is contamination with fungi and bacteria. Antibiotic and fungicide treatments were done after sterilization for micropropagation of L. candidum. Fungal contaminants formed during the culture were determined. Bulb scales were used as explants (5 - 10 mm width) and were cultured in photoperiodic conditions (16 h light, 8 h dark) or complete darkness. Bulb scales rinsed in water were surface sterilized, then solutions containing chemotherapeutic substances (Benomyl, Nystatin, Streptomycin, Penicillin) in different combinations were applied for 30 min and subsequently were cultured in MS medium with supplement 0.1 mg dm-3 NAA + 0.01 mg dm-3 BA. During the experiment, fungal contaminants were observed in full treatments. Determined contaminants were identified according to their morphological and cultural characteristics by cultivation and were comprised of: Fusarium, Penicillium, Alternaria, Rhizopus, Cylindrocarpon and Aspergillus species. The most effective treatment against fungal contaminations was achieved by utilizing a Benomyl (100 mg dm-3) + Nystatin (100 mg dm-3) treatment combination