Pythagoras project: Development of an innovative training package on Indoor Environment Quality

The aim of the Pythagoras project is the development and assessment of Greek national training material in the sector of indoor environmental quality. The need for education in this specific sector is dictated by the significant indoor environment deterioration and associated health hazards, which are caused by low ventilation levels, combined with the use of many modern building materials that aggravate pollutants emissions. Early in the project, a review is undertaken of the international literature and the syllabuses of foreign research and educational institutions active in indoor environment quality issues. At the same time, the requirements of the Greek educational and broader society, related to issues of indoor pollution and health, are determined. A training methodology is consequently developed, with the objective to optimally cover all the parameters associated with the indoor environment quality, for trainees of various disciplines. The training material is produced both in printed (book) and integrated electronic (e-learning) format. Additionally, four seminars are organized covering the respective sections of the training package. The training package is being assessed both by the trainees but also by international experts in the sector of indoor environment quality

Machine learning for estimation of building energy consumption and performance:a review

Ever growing population and progressive municipal business demands for constructing new buildings are known as the foremost contributor to greenhouse gasses. Therefore, improvement of energy eciency of the building sector has become an essential target to reduce the amount of gas emission as well as fossil fuel consumption. One most eective approach to reducing CO2 emission and energy consumption with regards to new buildings is to consider energy eciency at a very early design stage. On the other hand, ecient energy management and smart refurbishments can enhance energy performance of the existing stock. All these solutions entail accurate energy prediction for optimal decision making. In recent years, articial intelligence (AI) in general and machine learning (ML) techniques in specic terms have been proposed for forecasting of building energy consumption and performance. This paperprovides a substantial review on the four main ML approaches including articial neural network, support vector machine, Gaussian-based regressions and clustering, which have commonly been applied in forecasting and improving building energy performance

On the heating potential of a single buried pipe using deterministic and intelligent techniques

The present paper deals with the heating potential of a single buried pipe using real climatic data. The use of buried pipes in buildings for heating and cooling purposes has gained increasing acceptance in recent years. The system's heating potential was calculated using an accurate, dynamic, deterministic, numerical model. Multiyear ambient air and soil climatic data for the city of Athens have been used as inputs to the deterministic model and the results were compared. Furthermore, a neural network approach was used for estimating the thermal performance of the system in heating for the city of Athens. Moreover, the influence of several climatic parameters used as inputs to the neural model such as the ambient air temperature, the ground temperature and the relative humidity is investigated and analysed. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

On estimating soil surface temperature profiles

The present study deals with two methods for modeling and estimating the daily and annual variation of soil surface temperature. Soil surface temperature is an important factor for calculating the thermal performance of buildings in direct contact with the soil as well as for predicting the efficiency of earth-to-air heat exchangers. The two estimation methods are a deterministic model and a neural network approach. The two methods are tested and validated against extensive sets of measurements for bare and short-grass covered soil in Athens and Dublin. Finally, the comparison of the two models showed that the proposed intelligent technique is able to adequately estimate the soil surface temperature distribution. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

Low cost and energy saving housing design

The work presents a comprehensive urban design proposal including bio-climatic techniques to modify both outdoor and indoor thermal performance for new social housing in urban areas. More specifically, the presented case study is located inside a dismissed military area, the urban area Casaralta-Sani of the northern part of the city of Bologna. The historical formation of military-industrial areas is limited to the \u201cinner\u201d relations among buildings, while neglecting the interactions with streets and plots in the structure of surrounding urban textures. Therefore urban sustainable connections and pedestrian paths linking the area to the remaining part of the city, as well as urban (re-)design of outdoor areas -by exploiting natural elements- have been regarded as the first steps to improve overall microclimatic conditions in this part of the city. From urban constraints to the building scale, a new, modular, residential housing prototype has been studied for further investigations at technological level. In the construction of this experimental building different integration hypotheses among geometrical-structural elements and envelopes\u2019 variables, have been analysed, following a sensitivity analysis aimed at the comprehensive study of the thermal performance of the building. In the search for an integrated approach considering technical and construction features, as well as functional and formal aspects, the implementation on the present study case can lead to feasible solutions for low-cost and high energy performing buildings in urban areas

The influence of water, green and selected passive techniques on the rehabilitation of historical industrial building in urban areas

The present paper describes a new process for designing and applying selected passive heating and cooling techniques in a large urban area of Legnano, a city close to Milan. The planning restoration process is based on the integration of several natural and man-made factors with the bio-climatic criteria of individual buildings' design. The architectural rehabilitation of two historical industrial buildings, selected as representative in the overall urban renewal of the considered Cantoni urban area, has been considered as an integral part of the whole urban planning process. The buildings' design is further developed using solar passive heating/cooling techniques such as the insertion of an atrium between the buildings and the placement of green roofs on the building's bare coverings. The thermal behaviour of one of the above mentioned buildings equipped by passive heating and cooling techniques is calculated and analysed in the present paper using a transient building's performance simulation program. © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

An underground pipe system as an energy source for cooling/heating purposes

A complete numerical model for the prediction of air and soil temperature fields under a building is developed. The model describes the simultaneous heat and mass transfer inside an earth-tube system and into the soil, taking into account the soil's natural thermal stratification. The proposed model is validated against two experimental data sets and is found accurate. The proposed algorithms were developed within the TRNSYS environment and can be easily coupled with building or greenhouse simulation codes for the description of earth-tube heat exchangers' determinant parameters. © 1995

On the cooling potential of earth to air heat exchangers

The present paper deals with the cooling potential of earth to air heat exchangers. The cooling system consists of an underground pipe laid horizontally where ambient or indoor air is propelled through and cooled by the bulk temperature of the natural ground. The dynamic thermal performance of the system during the summer period and its operational limits have been calculated using an accurate transient numerical model. Multiyear soil and ambient air climatic measurements have been used as inputs to the model. An extensive sensitivity investigation has been performed in order to analyze the impact of the main design parameters on the cooling potential of the system. Cumulative frequency distributions of the exchanger's performance have been developed as a function of all the input parameters. The present paper aims to simplify the procedure for accurate design and performance evaluation of earth to air heat exchangers and to provide information on their cooling potential. © 1994

Energy conservation and potential of a sunspace: Sensitivity analysis

The influence of different main design parameters on the heating/cooling potential of a sunspace connected with a building has been investigated in the present paper. The sunspace consists of a glazed enclosure, usually on the south side of a building and it is regarded as one of the most popular solar systems because of its potential as an energy collecting system and also because of its pleasant appearance. The dynamic thermal performance of the system for the winter and summer periods of the year and its operational limits have been calculated using an accurate transient thermal model environment. The simulated results showed that sunspaces can be an appropriate and effective system during the cold period of the year. However, they are, very often, responsible for overheating during the warm period of the year. An extensive sensitivity investigation is performed in order to analyze the impact of various main system's parameters, such as orientation, boundary conditions, glazing material, etc., on the energy potential of the system

Simulating the thermal behaviour of a building during summer period in the urban environment

In this study an attempt is made to investigate the impact of the urban heat island (UHI) effect on the energy consumption of a building using both, an accurate, extensively validated, transient simulation model and a neural network one. The energy consumption is calculated for a typical building during the summer period at 20 different sites of the Greater Athens area with the aid of the TRNSYS model. It was found that the UHI affects significantly the thermal behaviour of the building, implying much lower cooling load cost and energy cost in the suburban areas. A neural network model was then appropriately designed and tested for the estimation of the energy consumption, employing as an input, the UHI intensity. The results of both methods were tested and compared and it was found that there is a good agreement between the cooling rate values calculated by the TRNSYS programme and those derived by the neural model. Moreover, the employment of the neural model helped in quantifying the contribution of each input parameter in the calculation of the cooling rate, and it was demonstrated that the UHI effect is a predominant parameter, affecting considerably the energy consumption of a building in the Mediterranean region. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved