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Doctor of Philosophy with a Major in Building Construction
Doctor of Philosophy with a Major in Building Construction
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ItemFactors influencing energy consumption among moderately low income residents in multifamily rental apartments(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2016-05-03) Mosale Krishne Gowda, Achala ParameshwariResidential electricity consumption is responsible for approximately 30% of global electricity consumption. Further, residential electricity consumption in the United States of America is 25% of the total energy consumption in the United States. Hence the residential energy sector will play a critical role in the future of the electricity industry, especially given the increasing global demand for affordable electricity services, as well as the urgent need to reduce climate change emissions from the electricity sectors. Recent studies estimate that behavioral changes can reduce residential energy consumption by about 7.4%. So, by providing more detailed feedback to consumers about their energy usage at the appliance level can potentially encourage such behavioral changes. However, achieving a better understanding of the nature of household electricity consumption is challenging, due to the heterogeneity of the residential sector, the complexity of the under-lying drivers and the lack of comprehensive data. Relevant data includes household demographics, including occupant numbers, age distributions, and income; household behavior such as how often occupants use certain appliances and the interest and effort that they devote towards energy conservation; building types, such as the type of dwelling (free standing or unit), different appliance ownership and access to alternatives to electricity for some services such as gas for heating and cooking; and the climate zone of the households as well as the daily weather conditions. As explained before, the wide variation seen across all of these drivers’ leads to considerable differences in households’ electricity consumption. But data on these drivers is not always available. There has generally been only limited electricity consumption data available. Energy Conservation has become one of the first sustainability issues to be addressed through combination of national and local government policies. Human behavior is the major link to the environmental issues like global warming. Making domestic energy consumption visible to the end users has become more challenging due to metering methods. The only commonly visible record of consumption comes in the form of quarterly bills or monthly statements, by which time the links between specific activities and the energy consumed are severely dislocated, a situation described elsewhere as similar to a supermarket not displaying any individual product prices but merely providing the shopper with a total non-itemized bill at the checkout. Such issues create a negative effect on awareness towards sustainability. Many studies has proven that giving feedback on human behavior has significantly affected the energy consumption. To most consumers in developed countries, the fuel used within homes has become, to a large extent, an invisible resource. So, there should be some policy to guide consumers and to make them understand the importance of energy saving. Several test statistics procedures were performed to understand the relationship between residents’ behavior and energy consumption: Impact of indoor and outdoor temperature on energy consumption, Impact of residents’ behavior and awareness on energy consumption, and Impact of all variables in the study on energy consumption.
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ItemAssessing the effects of augmented reality on the spatial skills of postsecondary construction management students in the U.S.(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2016-04-18) Kim, JeffThere is a continual challenge within the construction industry to meet schedule, budget, and quality expectations. At the same time, there is an underlying problem where the older and more experienced workforce is retiring from industry at a faster rate than the newer workforce can replace them. As the more experienced workforce departs from the industry, they are taking with them much-needed skills and experience that fail to get transitioned to the newer and less experienced workforce. Among these skills are spatial skills. The construction industry has already caught on that this is a serious problem that they must contend with, and so, they have looked to the postsecondary institutions to help resolve it. However, the postsecondary institutions have a problem of their own, whereby they commonly default to passive teaching techniques that are not well suited to teaching spatial skills. So, therefore, there is a need to graduate construction management students with better spatial skills in order to meet the necessities of industry. Along with this, is the need for academia to reconsider teaching styles to better train spatial skills. Spatial skills, it has been found, are better retained when active and collaborative teaching engagements are arranged. Therefore, identifying and testing a practical and non-interfering classroom tool that students can easily use, would be the most favorable way to overcome academia’s tendency towards passive teaching. Spatial skills are needed in every part of the construction industry. In fact, everyday simple tasks require spatial skills and while these skills are honed over time, more refined skills, capable of interpreting abstract space, are required to assemble a complex construction project. Construction projects are getting more complex and often the design involves some measure of abstract thinking. Teaching these abstract-based spatial skills in postsecondary institutions has typically been done through drafting and plan reading courses, with some success. However, the need from industry is not being fully met with these skills and so an alternative solution is recommended. While Building Information Modeling (BIM) has become an adequate solution to aid in the understanding and planning of highly abstract designs, successfully using it requires excellent spatial skills. Consequently, it would be advantageous if those spatial skills were developed before students were introduced to BIM. Augmented reality is a collection of technologies that allows a user to view the “real” world with additional information that is intended to provide a better understanding of what is being observed. Augmented reality already has applications in many industries and is fast becoming a proven technology. With the availability of smaller and more powerful consumer mobile devices, augmented reality has the potential of becoming a more ubiquitous and practical tool. Recognizing that this technology can be practical, non-interfering, and known by the masses makes it an excellent solution for the classroom. Therefore, this research will study the use of an augmented reality tool to determine if there is an improvement of spatial skills in terms of accuracy, time to execute, and the retention of concepts over time. Furthermore, a separate analysis will be conducted to determine if the teaching tool is a benefit or disruption to the overall learning experience.
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ItemA process for evaluating the benefits of near-infrared reflective roof coatings used on asphalt shingle roofs(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2015-12-04) Powers, Catherine N.Reflective roof coatings keep the roof cooler by minimizing solar absorption and maximizing thermal emission. Keeping the surface of the roof cooler allows less heat to be conducted into the interior of the building which reduces the cooling load in air-conditioned buildings and improve comfort conditions in non-air conditioned buildings. A number of cool white materials, compatible with most roofing products, are available on the market. To appeal to homeowners, special cool “color” products have been developed to match the dark colors of conventional residential roofs but are highly reflective in the invisible near-infrared (NIR) spectrum. Although many studies highlight the benefits of cool white coatings on roof membranes of low-slope roofs, knowledge of NIR reflective coatings on asphalt shingles of steep slope roofs remains limited. The intent of this exploratory study is to present a process that can be used to evaluate the perceived and actual benefits of NIR coatings field-applied to asphalt shingles on single-family houses. The proposed process can be applied to a large sample of homes and occupants in a future study. A questionnaire was designed to attempt to evaluate occupants’ perceived benefits in regards to their indoor environment and occupant satisfaction following applications of NIR coatings. Along with subjective data collection, a field-experiment was developed to objectively compare the thermal performance of an NIR reflective field-coated asphalt shingle roof system with that of a conventional asphalt shingle roof system. Questionnaire results indicated that occupants did not perceive any significant changes to their indoor environment but were satisfied overall with the application and appearance of the roof coating. Additionally, 50% of occupants stated that their monthly energy costs somewhat decreased after the application. Interestingly, 63% of respondents experienced some form of roof leak following the coating application. Among those who experienced roof leaks, 100% of the roofs were 10 years or older. Field results showed that the coated roof surface was 2 to 5℉ cooler than the uncoated roof surface at midafternoon. Statistical testing for correlation between coated roof surface temperature and external conditions revealed that relative humidity was negatively correlated with coated roof temperature, while solar altitude angle was positively correlated with coated roof temperature. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to develop a model for predicting the surface temperature of the coated asphalt shingle roofs from the ambient temperature, sky conditions, dew point temperature, relative humidity, solar altitude and azimuth angle.
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ItemA prototype goal oriented construction prototype management application for owners(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2014-04-04) Patterson, Lachlan JoelThe construction industry has had difficulty adopting project management software effectively and in a widespread manner. This thesis seeks to uncover common problems preventing the adoption of new software for construction project management, and to find a method to design more successful software. Construction project managers working at universities in the state of Georgia were selected as the specific group to study. To better define the functions of project management software, as well as uncover benefits both realized and anticipated, research was conducted. A Situation Awareness based approach was selected to result in proposing a prototype application that would specifically match the mental model of the study group. To define the mental model, a Goal Directed Task Analysis method was used by way of an online survey and in-person verification. In order to collect the survey data, a web based Goal Directed Task Analysis application was created and tested as a part of this thesis. Using the survey data, a proposed design for a prototype application was proposed. The application design was specifically made to fulfill the needs of project managers like those in the study group. The GDTA method proved effective in producing a software design. Recommendations to create and test the proposed prototype application are provided as a next step.