Organizational Unit:
College of Design
College of Design
Permanent Link
Research Organization Registry ID
Description
Previous Names
Parent Organization
Parent Organization
Includes Organization(s)
Organizational Unit
Organizational Unit
Organizational Unit
Organizational Unit
Organizational Unit
ArchiveSpace Name Record
3 results
Publication Search Results
Now showing
1 - 3 of 3
-
ItemInvestigation of hybrid ventilation potential of commercial buildings in US(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2018-07-30) Chen, JianliAs one of the largest energy consumers in our society, commercial buildings take up approximately 20% of total energy consumption based on the data from Department of Energy (DOE). Among this energy consumption, nearly half of it is consumed by air conditioning systems for maintaining a comfortable thermal environment for building occupants. Despite this high energy consumption, complains of thermal comfort and health problems still commonly exist in air-conditioned buildings. The mean building satisfaction rate was only reported as 59% based on a large survey of building occupants, which is far below the minimum thermal comfort requirement in ASHRAE standard 55. Meanwhile, there also exist health problems in air-conditioned buildings, which include both building related diseases (typically caused by specific exposure to infectious indoor source) and sick building syndrome, which describes a group of general symptoms including eye or throat irritation, shortness of breath, visual disturbance etc. Thus, in these years, coupling natural ventilation with mechanical ventilation, hybrid ventilated buildings have attracted more attention from both academia and industry with increasing awareness of building sustainability. Hybrid ventilated buildings have the potential to minimize the energy bills for owners without compromising the thermal comfort of building occupants. Compared to the mechanical ventilated building, the hybrid ventilation system allows opening the window when the outdoor environment is favorable, which provides occupants with amenity to nature and saves energy in the building operation. Compared to the natural ventilation building, the hybrid ventilation building could protect the building occupants from the unfavorable outdoor environment with air conditioners on. As the first step to further popularize the hybrid ventilation building, this dissertation will provide a thorough investigation of the hybrid ventilation potential across different US climates with accounting for comprehensive and influential aspects related to the usage of natural ventilation, including different levels of uncertainties a hybrid ventilation building could experience, the influence of building intelligence and the impact of outdoor air quality. How to better assess the thermal comfort risks and utilize simulation to design this type of building will also be presented.
-
ItemOptimal Investment Strategy for Energy Performance Improvements in Existing Buildings(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007-11-15) Ramkrishnan, KarthikCurrent global efforts for energy conservation and optimization are focused on improvements in energy supply and production systems, and on encouraging the adoption of energy-efficient devices and equipment. However, systematic assessments of economic and technical implications when adopting energy-efficient alternative systems in buildings have not yet been explored thoroughly. The uncertainty about the consequences of investing in alternative energy-efficient systems has led to a prolonged utilization of obsolete building systems (underperforming HVAC systems, inefficient lighting systems, badly maintained and equipment, and so forth). This has led to overall poor energy efficiency, creating considerable burden on the building operation budget. This research discusses the procedure for formulating an investment strategy to improve existing building energy performance. The approach is suitable for large building portfolios where a plethora of potential refurbishment interventions can be considered. This makes our approach especially suited for use on university campuses and most of this report will focus on that particular application utilization protocols especially for use on campuses. This investment model only looks at the energy related savings versus investments; it is well understood that the ultimate selection of the optimal set of improvement options of a portfolio will be determined by additional considerations, such as overall value, occupant satisfaction, productivity improvements, aesthetics, etc. Nevertheless, many campus managers are confronted with the question how much energy they can save with a given investment amount. This is exactly what our approach helps to answer. The investment optimization strategy is implemented in software "InvEnergy," which systematically calculates the costs and benefits of all possible building-technology pairings, taking uncertainties in the saving/investment calculations and estimates into account. This tool empowers decision makers in facility management to make complex investment decisions during continuous building commissioning.
-
ItemIs Building Construction Approaching the Threshold of Becoming Unsustainable: A Systems Theoretic Exploration towards a Post-Forrester Model for Taming Unsustainable Exponentialoids(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2006-11-15) Fernandez-Solis, Jose LucianoThe construction industry is a major emissions contributor and a main resource consumer. Because of this, the industry is formulating short and long-term 'sustainability targets'. The trend points towards an unsustainable future, within the next 75 years, due to actual and projected increases in resource consumption and emissions generation in response to global population growth, and improving living standards, affluence. There are no reliable studies that predict whether the required reductions in ecological impacts can actually be realized, and if so, on what time scale. In fact, currently no available system representations of the industry can serve as the basis for studying long-term sustainability through the twenty-first Century. Hard dynamic systems, based on reductionism, are no longer adequate representations to study the dynamics of complex systems. A worldview that includes complexity requires foremost a philosophical induction (a theory) of the nature of all the forces that move the industry and a mechanism for understanding how complex forces aggregate and affect growth. The dissertation examines the current understanding of the Theories of Complexity in general, and in building construction, as preparation for a deeper understanding on how sustainability and its opposite, exponential growth (or "exponentialoid") relate. Guaranteeing sustainability transcends the current arsenal of counter measures such as LEED, high-performance measures, waste containment, conservation, lessening demand, renewable resourcing, greening of the industry, creation of high-performance buildings, penalizing the polluter, carbon trading, and others… Sustainability is re-framed as the (artificial) force that tames an unsustainable exponentialoid. Sustainable forces are represented by elements of influence acting like vectorials that appear to have identifiable origin, direction and magnitude. A hypothetical example of how the heuristic/theory works is presented, pending future studies (needed to supply the necessary data required for a working model). This is pre-paradigmatic work, using both a novel worldview and method of analysis that points to increasingly detailed research work to be performed in the future.