Solar XXI building: Proof of concept or a concept to be proved?

Solar XXI building is a low energy office building where passive and active solar strategies have been applied to reduce the use of energy for heating,cooling and lighting, combining also an extensive photovoltaic façade for electricity production. Solar XXI opened in 2006 and is considered a high efficient building, close to a net zero energy building (NZEB), where the difference between the energy consumed and that produced is 1/10th of the energy consumed by a Portuguese standard new office building. Its design includes many energy efficiency concepts, such as a high insulated envelope,south sun exposure, windows external shading, photovoltaic panels heat recovery,ground-cooling system, daylighting, stack effect and cross ventilation. The solar gains of the windows and the effectiveness of shading devices were evaluated in order to correlate solar radiation, external and indoor air temperatures.It was also verified that amplitude-dampening of ground cooled air ranged between 5 and 8 C, following the trend of the analytical solution for heat diffusion of a cylindrical air/soil heat-exchanger

Energy performance certificate: a valuable tool for building-to-grid interaction?

New challenges were opened with the recast of Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, requiring by 2020 that new buildings be “nearly Zero-Energy Buildings” (nearly ZEB). In addition to consumer buildings, Net ZEBs are also producers’ by using as much renewable energy sources as possible to compensate the building energy load. Sustainable cities require energy-efficient buildings, i.e. buildings where the use of energy is minimized without compromising the occupants comfort, namely for heating, cooling, lighting and indoor air quality. But smart cities require energy-efficient ‘interactive’ buildings, which integrate multiplecarrier energy networks and provide up-to-date valuable information for their management, where buildings are simplified to single nodes characterized by their energy load, generation, storage and conversion, applying the load-generation approach. The information currently available in the Energy Performance Certificate is not relevant for estimating the time dependent building energy load, but it can be easily improved by including a few descriptive parameters

Methodological development of sesonal cooling energy needs by introducing ground-cooling systems

In past years, building professionals increased their interest on passive systems as sustainable solutions to reduce energy needs. This has been driven by the building certification program and new Portuguese building thermal code enacted in 2006. For residential and small office buildings, the methodology adopted is a seasonal quasi-stationary approach for calculating cooling energy following EN ISO 13790:2007. However, this method lacks specific recommendations for accounting passive cooling systems, namely ground-cooling systems. In this paper, the ground-heat exchanger contribution is included in the energy needs method. This development is sustained by measurements obtained in the ground-heat exchanger running on Solar XXI office building at LNEG campus, complemented by simplified and Fourier theoretical formulations. The horizontal ground-heat exchanger at Solar XXI is constituted by 32 concrete ducts, with a 30 cm diameter and buried 4.6 m deep. The air entrance is made from a feeding well about 15 m away from the building and its functioning during summer warm days supplies cool air for room offices

Co-design and mass customization in the Portuguese footwear cluster: an exploratory study

In the present, consumers tend to be more knowledgeable and interventive, requiring an active role in the way how they relate to brands and products. To meet this need, several sectors of the fashion industry saw this as a market opportunity and adopted approaches of Collaborative Design and Mass Customization. The footwear sector was not indifferent to this new paradigm of creation, production, distribution, and consumption, and several worldwide brands adopted innovative strategies. In Portugal, despite footwear being a mature industry with a strong tradition and worldwide recognition, it is necessary to continuously invest in innovation-based competitiveness, exploring the opportunities of Industry 4.0. Thus, the study seeks to analyse this important sector of the Portuguese economy, in order to perceive the acceptance, vision, and expectations regarding the approaches of Co-design and Mass Customization. In this way, seven companies with national relevance were studied based on a questionnaire survey. Findings show the industry's interest in Co-design and customization, despite the concern about the effort and risk associated to the transition and implementation of the productive approach. Relevant data for the development of collaborative models of footwear customization are gathered in this study.This work is supported by Project UID/CTM/00264/2019 of 2C2T – Centre for Textile Science and Technology, funded by National Founds through FCT/MCTES and by FAMEST Project (projeto de IDT em co-promoção mobilizador n. 24529, 2017-2020)

Realidade virtual para reabilitação pós-avc: estudos de utilizadores e desenvolvimento de jogos

Stroke is one of the leading causes of disability and death in the world, and rehabilitation is a relevant part of the life of stroke survivors. Physical therapy is necessary to recover some movement during the acute phase, but also to maintain muscle strength and avoid deterioration and weakness during the chronic phase. The global pandemic caused shortages of rehabilitation activities, and Virtual Reality (VR) games could be used as a complementary type of therapy for stroke rehabilitation to be used at home. This dissertation proposes a user study to better understand the needs and preferences of stroke survivors and the development of game prototypes to better ascertain the potential of VR-based serious games. With this goal, a Questionnaire and a Focus Group were done with survivors, and based on their results, two VR-based game prototypes were developed, focused on the movements that survivors need to perform as well as providing an equivalent to Mirror Therapy. This study found that stroke survivors in chronic stage are more interested in applications based on real-world activities, especially activities they used to perform before the onset symptoms. Negative feedback is also an issue they prefer to avoid based on mental health conditions commonly associated with stroke. The game prototypes were tested concerning usability and were scored high with healthy participants on the System Usability Scale when performed normally, but low when their movements were mirrored, though perhaps survivors are more used to this kind of exercise. The performance of the game prototypes needs improvement, but they were considered easy to use and to learn. The next step will be an evaluation of the improved versions by stroke survivors.O AVC é uma das principais causas de invalidez e morte no mundo, e a reabilitação é uma parte relevante da vida dos sobreviventes do AVC. A fisioterapia é necessária para recuperar algum movimento durante a fase aguda, mas também para manter a força muscular e evitar a deterioração e fraqueza durante a fase crónica. A pandemia global causou escassez de atividades de reabilitação, e jogos de Realidade Virtual (RV) poderiam ser usados como um tipo complementar de terapia para reabilitação de AVC com o uso em casa. Esta dissertação propõe um Estudo com Utilizadores para melhor compreender as necessidades e preferências de sobreviventes do AVC e o desenvolvimento de protótipos de jogos para melhor averiguar o potencial de jogos sérios baseados em RV. Com este objetivo, um Questionário e um Grupo Focal foram feitos com os sobreviventes e, com base em seus resultados, dois protótipos de jogos baseados em RV foram desenvolvidos, focados nos movimentos que os sobreviventes precisam realizar, além de fornecer um modo equivalente à Terapia do Espelho. Este estudo descobriu que sobreviventes de AVC em estágio crónico estão mais interessados em aplicações baseadas em atividades do mundo real, especialmente atividades que eles costumavam realizar antes do início dos sintomas. O feedback negativo também é um problema que eles preferem evitar com base nas condições de saúde mental comumente associadas ao AVC. Os protótipos do jogo foram testados com base em usabilidade e pontuaram alto com os participantes saudáveis na Escala de Usabilidade do Sistema quando executados normalmente, mas pontuaram baixo quando seus movimentos foram espelhados, embora talvez os sobreviventes estejam mais acostumados a esse tipo de exercício. O desempenho dos protótipos de jogos precisa de melhorias, mas eles foram considerados fáceis de usar e aprender. O próximo passo será a avaliação de versões melhoradas por sobreviventes de AVC.Mestrado em Engenharia Informátic

Assessement of the Portuguese building thermal code: Newly revised requirements for cooling energy needs used to prevent the overheating of buildings in the summer

In this paper, cooling energy needs are calculated by the steady-state methodology of the Portuguese building thermal code. After the first period of building code implementation, re-evaluation according to EN ISO 13790 is recommended in order to compare results with the dynamic simulation results. From these analyses, a newly revised methodology arises including a few corrections in procedure. This iterative result is sufficiently accurate to calculate the building’s cooling energy needs. Secondly, results show that the required conditions are insufficient to prevent overheating. The use of the gain utilization factor as an overheating risk index is suggested, according to an adaptive comfort protocol, and is integrated in the method used to calculate the maximum value for cooling energy needs. This proposed streamlined method depends on reference values: window-to-floor area ratio, window shading g-value, integrated solar radiation and gain utilization factor, which leads to threshold values significantly below the ones currently used. These revised requirements are more restrictive and, therefore, will act to improve a building’s thermal performance during summer. As a rule of thumb applied for Portuguese climates, the reference gain utilization factor should assume a minimum value of 0.8 for a latitude angle range of 40-41ºN, 0.6 for 38-39ºN and 0.5 for 37ºN

Air flow exchange velocity of urban canyon cavities due to thermal spatial differences

In this paper, the air exchange velocity between the urban canyon cavity and the air layer above roof level is quantified, using a two-dimensional k-ε model, and correlated with the air cavity mean temperature, for two cases: leeward and downward wall heating. The spatial thermal differences are evaluated by assuming a wall temperature higher than the air temperature, with this difference ranging between 0 and 16 K. The undisturbed wind velocity above the roof level is varied from 1 to 6 ms-1 and the canyon aspect ratio is 1.5, which corresponds to a skimming flow regime. The model predicts two situations, which correspond to air flow regimes where one or two eddies are formed, respectively: (a) for high wind speed, the air inside the cavity is negligible affect by the buoyancy effect and the air exchange velocity linearly increases with the increase of wind velocity; (b) for low wind speed, when the buoyancy forces are stronger than the wind induced forces, the air exchange velocity is not a linear function with the wind velocity. The transition wind velocity between (a) and (b) is a function of the wall-air temperature difference. The situation of windward heated wall and two eddies air flow regime is the most favorable to extract heat from the cavity. On the contrary, the heated air is hardly extracted from the cavity when only the wind induced eddy is predicted and windward wall is heated. In this situation an increase of 10 K on the wall temperature increases by 1 K the in-cavity air temperature

Eficiência energética na cidade: Estratégias para a promoção da capacidade natural de aquecimento e arrefecimento de edifícios

Este estudo apresenta uma técnica para, a partir de um dado índice de construção, encontrar as formas urbanas mais favoráveis ao desempenho térmico de edifícios, com base na absorptância efectiva do edifício no Inverno e no Verão. Esse parâmetro é indicativo da exposição solar do mesmo e da capacidade natural de aquecimento de um edifício quando esse se encontra inserido numa malha urbana. A avaliação da absorptância efectiva para as duas estações do ano permitiu encontrar as formas de organização da malha que beneficiam a acessibilidade solar de Inverno, mas restrigem-na no Verão. Para o cálculo da absorptância efectiva utiliza-se o Método das Matrizes Urbanas que consiste em obter para cada geometria, uma matriz Ψ que descreve a forma como a radiação que incide em cada uma das parcelas que compõem as superfícies do bloco urbano se distribui pelas restantes superfícies. Essa matriz integra os factores de forma entre as superfícies e as respectivas propriedades de absorpção considerando, dessa forma, as reflexões múltiplas que ocorrem no interior do espaço urbano. A aplicação de uma metodologia de optimização a diversas formas urbanas, com base no conceito de algoritmo genético, permitiu concluir que, para as latitudes de 37º e 42º, as malhas urbanas mais favoráveis são os blocos de secção rectangular, com 3 a 5 pisos, dispostos segundo um eixo Este-Oeste por forma a possuirem uma maior fachada exposta a Sul. O espaçamento entre blocos é sempre maximizado na direcção Norte-Sul por forma a permitir, no Inverno, uma maior exposição solar da fachada Sul e, por outro lado, minimizando o espaçamento entre blocos na direcção Este-Oeste, prevenir os excessivos ganhos solares na estação de Verão. Para uma latitude de 37º são ainda soluções blocos de secção quadrangular com 5 a 8 pisos, que formam uma malha com ângulo de ±15º relativamente à direcção dos pontos cardeais

Desafios da docência do Ensino especializado em Música: estará o professor de trombone preparado para receber um aluno com Necessidades Educativas Especiais?

O presente Relatório Final é referente ao projeto de ensino supervisionado do mestrado em ensino de Música, na variante de Trombone, do Instituto Piaget de Viseu. Nele são integradas duas distintas componentes da Prática Educativa Supervisionada. A primeira secção é constituída pela contextualização do projeto, as práticas desenvolvidas e observadas e a reflexão crítica da Prática de Ensino Supervisionada realizada no ano letivo 2019/2020, na Academia de Música de Vilar do Paraíso. A segunda secção corresponde ao Projeto Educativo implementado ao longo do ano letivo, que foi a realização e análise de um estudo exploratório através de um questionário on-line, para obter respostas dos professores de trombone do ensino especializado em música acerca das suas perceções acerca das docências do instrumento com alunos Medidas de Suporte á Aprendizagem e á Inclusão: Necessidades de Saúde Especiais (NSE). Têm como objetivo perceber as dificuldades sentidas pelos professores de trombone do ensino especializado em música quando tem de lecionar a um aluno com Medidas de Suporte à Aprendizagem e à inclusão, que concluímos que não são sentidas pelos professores, apesar de não serem devidamente formados na área