Gaining confidence in models of experiments in existing buildings

Describes a method for gaining confidence in models of experiments in existing buildings

Delivering building simulation information via new communication media

Often, the goal of understanding how the building works and the impact of design decisions is hampered by limitations in the presentation of performance data. Contemporary results display is often constrained to what was considered good practice some decades ago rather than in ways that preserve the richness of the underlying data. This paper reviews a framework for building simulation support that addresses these presentation limitations as well as making a start on issues related to distributed team working. The framework uses tools and communication protocols that enable concurrent information sharing and provide a richer set of options for understanding complex performance relationships

A STUDY OF FLUID BED GRANULATION OF PRAVASTATIN TABLET USING DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS

Objective: The objective of this study was to reduce size and weight of pravastatin tablet through quality by design approach; potential factors (spray rate, atomizing pressure, and inlet temperature) which could influence on the production process for critical process parameters of wet granulation using fluid-bed granulator were examined.Methods: The manufacturing process of the reduced weight and size formulation pravastatin tablet involves wet granulation, drying, granulate screening, blending, and tableting. Design of experiments study for wet granulation of the reduced weight/size pravastatin tablet was produced on 11 combinations of three factors (spray rate, atomizing pressure, and inlet temperature), which were chosen through initial risk assessment. The process of wet granulation was rated by measuring four responses: loss on drying (LOD) (%), bulk density (g/ml), product temperature (°C), and dissolution similarity (f2).Results: It was measured that LOD varied from 1.46 to 3.24%, bulk density from 0.34 to 0.51 g/ml, product temperature from 40.12 to 51.69°C, and dissolution (f2) of pravastatin from 52.14 to 58.91. Control strategy for wet granulation production of the reduced weight and size pravastatin tablet by our results demonstrated that the most optimized condition of three factors for wet granulation is spray rate (3–5 g/min), atomizing pressure (about 1 bar), and inlet temperature (65–90°C), respectively. Updated risk assessment and justification by all experimental data safely existed within the range of acceptance criteria were presented.Conclusion: It can be concluded that the ideal ranges of three factors (spray rate, atomizing pressure, and inlet temperature) in wet granulation were successfully identified

Energy and carbon performance of housing : upgrade analysis, energy labelling and national policy development

The area of policy formulation for the energy/carbon performance of housing is coming under increasing focus. A major challenge is to account for the large variation within national housing stocks relative to factors such as location, climate, age, construction, previous upgrades, appliance use and heating/cooling system types. Existing policy oriented tools rely on static calculation models that have limited ability to represent building behaviour and the impact of future changes in climate and technology. The switch to detailed simulation tools to address these limitations in the context of policy development has hitherto been focussed on the modelling of a small number of representative designs rather than dealing with the spread inherent in large housing stocks. To address these challenges, the ESRU Domestic Energy Model (EDEM) has been developed as a Web based tool built on detailed simulation models that have been aligned with the outcomes of national house condition surveys. On the basis of pragmatic inputs, EDEM is able to determine energy use and carbon emissions at any scale – from an individual dwelling to national housing stocks. The model was used at the behest of the Scottish Building Standards Agency and South Ayrshire Council to determine the impact of upgrades and the deployment of new and renewable energy systems. EDEM was also used to rate the energy/carbon performance of individual dwellings as required by the EU Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings (EU, 2002). This paper describes the EDEM methodology and presents the findings from applications at different scales