Sustainable Performance Optimization for Digital Housing

With natural resources depleting, sustainable solutions are becoming more and more a necessity. To deal with the depleting resources, the Dutch government aims to generate 14% of country’s energy consumption through natural resources by 2020. The Dutch built environment is estimated to be responsible for 38.1% of the total energy consumption. This means that investments and innovation within this area have high potential. However, there are some indications that these goals cannot be met. New houses often meet these requirements but, with a growth of 0.8% per year, these only make up for a small portion of all projects. As a result, a strong focus lays on improving and renovating the existing housing market towards a sustainable and low energy environment. For this transition, information on the current housing market, possible renovation options and insight on the investments costs are required. Within this PDEng-project the aim is to further develop WoonConnect, a digital tool that can help to speed up this transition for both renovation projects and new buildings

Koolstofarm verwarmen en koelen van woningen met erfgoedwaarde: catalogus installaties

Deze geïllustreerde catalogus Koolstofarm verwarmen en koelen van erfgoedwoningen is een van de resultaten van het in het kader van het Vlaams Klimaatfonds uitgeschreven onderzoeksproject over koolstofarme verwarming- en koeling van woningen met erfgoedwaarde. De catalogus is opgebouwd uit twee luiken. Een eerste luik betreft de context en ambitie van de studie. Het tweede luik bevat een overzicht van state-of-the-art systemen en componenten voor (duurzame) warmteopwekking, ventilatie en warmteafgifte met oog voor de belangrijkste hinderpalen en opportuniteiten bij integratie in erfgoedgebouwen. De catalogus biedt een goed startpunt voor bouwheren die meer diepgaand willen kennismaken met duurzame technieken in erfgoedwoningen. In het geheel van de output fungeert deze catalogus ook als een begeleidende tekst bij de afwegingsschemas (AWS) die ingrepen evalueren met betrekking tot de erfgoedwaarde en de beslissingsbomen voor systeemkeuzes. Het biedt de ontwerper houvast bij de keuzes die in de beslissingsbomen moeten gemaakt worden. Het document heeft daarnaast als bedoeling om de bredere (installatietechnische) context van de keuzes te schetsen en zo het blikveld van de ontwerpers en consulenten te verbreden. De technieken die in deze catalogus vermeld worden, geven een overzicht van wat vandaag technisch mogelijk is. Zij hebben hun efficiëntie en nut bewezen. Verder zijn zij voldoende ingeburgerd, zodat het vinden van installateurs met kennis ter zake mogelijk is. Enkele beloftevolle technologieën voor de toekomst worden kort vermeld

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

Surface to surface radiation benchmarks

The paper presents a student guide on how to implement surface to surface radiation within COMSOL Multiphysics 5.2 for case studies found within the built environment. The paper is based on the work of Eck and Klep (2016). We included four benchmarks: (1) Radiation in a triangular cavity with infinite length; (2) Radiation between two infinitely long rectangular plates; (3) Radiation in a three dimensional rectangular enclosure; (4) Radiation in an ice rink building. We conclude that Comsol benchmark results are satisfactory. All files are available at the HAMLab (2016) website

Sustainable performance optimization for digital housing

With natural resources depleting, sustainable solutions are becoming more and more a necessity. To deal with the depleting resources, the Dutch government aims to generate 14% of country’s energy consumption through natural resources by 2020. The Dutch built environment is estimated to be responsible for 38.1% of the total energy consumption. This means that investments and innovation within this area have high potential. However, there are some indications that these goals cannot be met. New houses often meet these requirements but, with a growth of 0.8% per year, these only make up for a small portion of all projects. As a result, a strong focus lays on improving and renovating the existing housing market towards a sustainable and low energy environment. For this transition, information on the current housing market, possible renovation options and insight on the investments costs are required. Within this PDEng-project the aim is to further develop WoonConnect, a digital tool that can help to speed up this transition for both renovation projects and new buildings.</p