Showing papers in "Building and Environment in 2005"

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an overview of the basic principles of thermal insulation and to survey the most commonly used building insulation materials, their performance characteristics and proper applications, and the magnitude of energy savings as a result of using thermal insulation vary according to the building type, the climatic conditions at which the building is located as well as the type of the insulating material used.

TL;DR: In this article, a multi-objective optimization model that could assist designers in green building design is presented, which includes those parameters that are usually determined at the conceptual design stage and that have critical influence on building performance.

TL;DR: In this article, Al-Khod (Town in northern Oman) expansive soil was stabilized using lime, cement, combinations of lime and cement, Sarooj (artificial pozzolan) and heat treatment.

TL;DR: In this paper, a mathematical model for evaluating cooling potential of green roof and solar thermal shading in buildings is presented, where a control volume approach based on finite difference methods is used to analyze the components of green roofs, viz. green canopy, soil and support layer.

TL;DR: In this article, the possibilities for implementing a rainwater collection system in Ringdansen, a residential area in Norrkoping, Sweden, have been explored by analysing four scenarios for using rainwater in a dual water supply system to supplement drinking water.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors review the biomimetics literature that is relevant to building materials and design and analyse specific examples of sustainability from nature and the benefits or value that these solutions have brought to different creatures.

TL;DR: In this paper, the potential of daylighting to save energy associated with electric lighting use was investigated for several combinations of building geometry, window opening size, and glazing type for four geographical locations in the United States.

TL;DR: In this paper, two different types of steel fibers were used, in combination, and the effects of fiber inclusion on the workability of hybrid fiber reinforced self-compacting concrete (HFR-SCC) is studied.

TL;DR: In this article, the utilization potential of kraft pulp production residues in clay brick was investigated, and the results showed that the residue can be used in brick-clay as an organic pore-forming agent and by this way it can be utilized in environmentally safe way.

TL;DR: In this article, an attempt has been made to examine the applicability of QFD as a strategic decision-making tool after the construction stage of a housing project to determine the best marketing strategy, to make a comparison between the performances of different competitors and to transfer the experience gained from the current project to the forthcoming projects.

TL;DR: In this article, the performance characteristics of a solar-assisted ground-source (geothermal) heat pump system (SAGSHPS) for greenhouse heating with a 50m vertical 32mm nominal diameter U-bend ground heat-exchanger were investigated.

TL;DR: A two-dimensional Cellular Automata model is applied to simulate the process of evacuation with respect to the kin behavior and it is preliminarily found that the proper kin behavior is beneficial to improve the evacuation efficiency.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed the historic trends in thermal comfort (measured in terms of Temperature-Humidity Index [THI] and Relative Strain Index [RSI]) in the Sri Lankan primate city of Colombo and correlate them with land cover changes in the region.

TL;DR: In this article, the impact of solar radiation on pollutant dispersion in different urban street layouts using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique was investigated. And the results indicated that the street geometry has a strong influence on the wind field and pollution dispersion patterns, and the upward buoyancy flux divides the flow structure into two counterrotating cells at symmetrical configuration or a small vortex at the lower windward building corner is generated at stepup notch when the windward side is heated.

TL;DR: In this paper, the importance of SPE factors is examined through a questionnaire survey conducted in Hong Kong and the results of the questionnaire survey are used to develop a SPE framework suitable for use in the construction industry and protocols for evaluating the safety performance at the organisational and project levels.

TL;DR: In this paper, a conventional mortar was compared with ones incorporating rubber tyre particles, partly replacing the natural sand aggregates, and the compressive and tensile properties of these cement composites were investigated.

TL;DR: The results show that droplets or particles generated by normal breathing process transport a relatively short distance, while dropletsor particles generated during coughing or sneezing may travel much longer distances, which may pose adverse effect on human bodies for defending the SARS or other infectious diseases.

TL;DR: In this paper, a methodology to predict the potential for energy savings on lighting using an Ideal Window Area concept when there is effective daylight integration with the artificial lighting system was developed by using rooms of ten different dimensions and five different room ratios.

TL;DR: In this article, a housing performance evaluation model for multi-family residential buildings in Korea is presented, which is intended to encourage initiatives toward achieving better housing performance and to support a homebuyer's decision-making on housing comparison and selection.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors review the history of the globalisation of the construction industry and its current status and point out the avenues that could be pursued by firms based in LCDs to benefit from the open construction market.

TL;DR: In this paper, a hygrothermal model accounting for the moisture and heat transport in a massive wood envelope directly exposed to an indoor climate is presented, and a numerical simulation is provided to depict buffering capacity of a massive timber structure as a function of the air exchange rate and the effective wood wall area.

TL;DR: In this article, a review of several studies on the detection of microbial volatile organic compounds (MVOCs) considered as indicators of fungal contamination is presented, and two limiting factors may appear decisive for employment of electronic noses in indoor fungi detection: low concentrations of MVOCs and presence of interfering substances.

TL;DR: In this article, a general and systematic methodology, termed complete simulation-based sequential quadratic programming (CSB-SQP), is presented for determining the optimal control of building HVAC&R systems.

TL;DR: In this paper, a simple analytical method is introduced to evaluate the thermal radiant field induced by the presence of the solar radiation, and an application to a typical thermal comfort computation is finally presented.

TL;DR: In this paper, an ideal Feng Shui model is introduced for verifying whether the design of architects based on more scientific derivation is likely to be in line with the ancient Feng shui theories.

TL;DR: In this paper, a simplified star-network and a triangular RC-network are used for describing heat transfer in thermally activated building constructions, which can be used both for surface radiant systems such as floor heating and ceiling cooling as well as concrete core conditioning.

TL;DR: In this article, a mathematical model for predicting airflow velocity in a solar chimney has been developed through predicting temperature of the absorber, air in flow channel and glass cover, and experimental validation of the model has been done using a solar ch chimney having less than a 1m high absorber.

TL;DR: In this article, the Taguchi method was used to determine optimum conditions for tire rubber in asphalt concrete with Marshall Test, and the optimum conditions were obtained for the following parameters: tire rubber gradation (sieve #40), mixing temperature (155,°C), aggregate gradient (grad. 1), tire rubber ratio (10%), binder ratio (5.5%), compaction temperature (135,°C) and mixing time (15,min).

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors measured PM2.5 and 20 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in 15 non-smoking residences in three residential buildings located in urban area of Guangzhou, China during the 15 continued clear days from November 1 to 15 in 2002.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the effect of the air supply location on the design and performance of the displacement ventilation (DV) system in terms of thermal comfort and indoor air quality.