User satisfaction evaluation of indoor environmental quality for office buildings

To ensure enclosed spaces with comfortable conditions and satisfactory for people, the indoor environment needs to be evaluated, which requires aggregating data to provide a picture of overall building performance. Recommendations for assessing Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) satisfaction point towards advanced methods in new and innovative approaches, suggesting assessing it from the combination of quantitative and qualitative data that provide empirical information to improve the indoor environment.

O impacto das modificações pós-ocupação no desempenho térmico de HIS: estudo de caso em Uberlândia-MG

Since 2009, more than four million social housing units (HIS) have been delivered in Brazil. Despite the positive impact on the housing deficit, HIS are often criticized for their design and construction quality. Residents report problems like thermal discomfort, high maintenance costs, lack of security, and the need of more built-up area. Once dissatisfied, the users modify the buildings in order to meet their demands.

Análise do microclima urbano através de modelagem computacional: estudo de caso em Balneário Camboriú-SC

The urban heat islands are an urban climate phenomenon defined by the positive difference between the air temperature of an urban area to a non-urban one. Factors such as geometry, materiality, pollution, and vegetation influence the intensity of urban climatic phenomena. This study aims to evaluate the effect of geometry and solar reflectance of urban surfaces on the microclimate of a Brazilian coastal city. The methodology is a case study of two areas with different geometries, representing the central region of Balneário Camboriú, Santa Catarina.

Development of a method for integrating BIM with a thermal load prediction metamodel using gbXML

The use of energy simulations is not yet fully inserted in the building design process. A promising solution for the integration of energy simulation tools in the design process can be achieved by using building information models (BIM). The integration of BIMs with energy analysis models (BEM) during the life cycle can reduce rework and facilitate the evaluation of different design alternatives. However, complete interoperability in the BIM-BEM integration process has not yet been achieved.

Análise do desempenho térmico de uma residência unifamiliar por meio de simulação computacional

O Brasil enfrenta hoje um déficit habitacional de quase seis milhões de moradias. Programas governamentais, como o Minha Casa, Minha Vida (PMCMV), tentam suprir essa carência facilitando a aquisição de habitações para a população, em especial de baixa renda. Devido à alta demanda por moradias e a necessidade de baixo custo de execução, o desempenho térmico das edificações e o conforto do usuário são postergados, em especial pela existência de “projetos padrão” que atendem aos inúmeros tipos climáticos presentes no país.

Multiscale modeling to optimize thermal performance design for urban social housing: A case study

Autores:
Eduarda Lorrany Sousa Gonçalves e, Jhonata Lima Braga a, Athos de Oliveira Sampaio a, Vitor dos Santos Batista b, Leonardo Junior da Rocha Menezes c, Leticia Gabriela Eli d, Márcio Santos Barata e, Raul da Silva Ventura Neto e, Bruno Ramos Zemero e
Resumo:

Climate change impacts the entire planet, and its effects are particularly evident in urban areas. Northern cities in Brazil experience a hot and humid climate, which poses a challenge to achieving high levels of thermal performance in housing developments. This challenge is amplified by the fact that most residents do not have access to air conditioning systems, making it difficult to mitigate the heat. Current technologies have the potential to confront this critical situation by diagnosing thermal performance and implementing optimized strategies for modeling multiple climatic scales, including the city, neighborhood, and indoor environment. Therefore, this study aims to fill a research gap by utilizing simulations to predict and optimize the thermal performance of naturally ventilated social housing in hot and humid equatorial climates, while considering the effects of climate change. Adaptive modeling principles were applied, fostering synergy among the meso, local, and microclimatic scales through a unidirectional simulation. The results revealed that the region experiencing the highest real estate growth has witnessed a significant increase in temperature over the years. The comparison between historical and future climate files confirmed predictions of climate change in a pessimistic scenario, particularly regarding temperature and relative humidity indicators. When climate files adjusted for future climate conditions were used, it was discovered that passive building design strategies had a stronger impact on the microclimate compared to heat island mitigation strategies. This impact led to better building thermal performance. However, at the building scale, thermal performance is highly influenced by climate change and could be reduced by up to 11% (in 2020) and 39% (in 2050).

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Sky emissivity model calibration with data from Brazil and building simulation sensitivity analysis

Autores:
R.P.L. Amorim a, A.P. Melo b, S.L. Mantelli Neto c, R. Lamberts b
Resumo:

Downward long-wave radiation is an important parameter for building simulation because it strongly influences the thermal balance of the external surface. Brazil has several distinct climatic regions, and little formal work has been done with observed downward long-wave radiation to build thermal energy balancing due to a lack of continuous data. In this regard, selecting a model and adjusting local parameters is fundamental for reducing the uncertainty of the computational simulation process. In the present study, we use data from four different latitude sites to adjust the parameters of four models integrated into the EnergyPlus simulation program. The results obtained in the analysis indicated that with an appropriate adjustment of local parameters, all models achieved good predictive performance and provided lower errors values than previous versions, when using versions incorporated into the EnergyPlus, and when using original versions. In addition, it is recommended to use the Berdahl and Martin’s [10] model adjusted by this study in the building energy simulations carried out in Brazil, since it obtained the lowest rRMSE values, between 2.2% and 2.5%, while the standard model of EnergyPlus varies between 5.1% and 10.5%. After validating the adjustments and considering a single-family house of 43.25 m2, it was concluded that without proper adjustment, the models incorporated into the EnergyPlus, overestimate the total annual thermal load by 8% to 37% when compared to the model the proposed in the present work.

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Ten questions concerning thermal resilience of buildings and occupants for climate adaptation

Autores:
Tianzhen Hong a, Jeetika Malik a, Amanda Krelling b, William O'Brien c, Kaiyu Sun a, Roberto Lamberts b, Max Wei a
Resumo:

With climate change leading to more frequent, more intense, and longer durations of extreme weather events such as heat waves and cold snaps, it is essential to maintain safe indoor environmental conditions for occupants during such events, which may coincide with, or even cause, power outages that expose residents to health risks. Analyzing the impacts of extreme weather events on the thermal resilience of buildings can help stakeholders (including occupants) understand the risk and inform them about mitigation and adaptation actions. Moreover, analyzing the technological, social and policy dimensions of thermal resilience is critical for climate-proofing buildings. This paper presents 10 questions that highlight the most important issues regarding the thermal resilience of buildings for occupants in the face of climate change. The proposed questions and answers aim to provide insights into current and future building thermal resilience research and applications, and more importantly to inspire new significant questions in the field.

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Energy efficiency strategies for Brazilian social housing considering a life cycle perspective: Optimisation between thermal autonomy, energy consumption and costs

Autores:
Maria Andrea Triana, Rayner Mauricio e Silva Machado, Artur Martins Kamimura, Matheus Körbes Bracht, Ana Paula Melo, Roberto Lamberts
Resumo:

This study aims to establish optimal cases for energy-efficient social housing projects in Brazil, considering a life cycle cost-benefit analysis. Energy efficiency measures for the building envelope were evaluated in representative single-family and multifamily typology projects for the lower-income sector, considering thermal autonomy, energy consumption and cost indicators. The measures estimated in terms of macrocomponents allowed for comparative evaluation and association with costs. Cases were simulated in EnergyPlus to obtain the building’s expected operational consumption. With the macrocomponents and simulation data, Python routines were used to compute results for each proposed combination. Optimal cases that present high thermal performance in the national standard (NBR 15575) with cost-effectiveness, offering guidelines for projects in the 8 Brazilian bioclimatic zones, were established. Results presented in more detail for bioclimatic zone 8 showed optimal cases, with the increase in the percentage of hours of thermal autonomy reaching 65%–71%, whereas that of a typical building was 30%, while life cycle cost related to the envelope showed reductions of up to 22%, even with higher initial costs. This study served as a basis for the new Brazilian policy proposed by the National Housing Office (SNH) to develop new social housing projects.

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Ten questions concerning occupant-centric control and operations

Autores:
Zoltan Nagy a, Burak Gunay b, Clayton Miller c, Jakob Hahn d, Mohamed M. Ouf e, Seungjae Lee f, Brodie W. Hobson b, Tareq Abuimara g, Karol Bandurski h, Maíra André i, Clara-Larissa Lorenz j, Sarah Crosby k, Bing Dong l, Zixin Jiang l, Yuzhen Peng c, Matt
Resumo:

Occupant-Centric Control and Operation (OCC) represents a transformative approach to building management, integrating sensing of indoor environmental quality, occupant presence, and occupant-building interactions. These data are then utilized to optimize both operational efficiency and occupant comfort. This paper summarizes the findings from the IEA-EBC Annex 79 research program's subtask on real world implementations of OCC during the past 5 years. First, in Q1 and Q2, we provide a definition and categorization of OCC. Q3 addresses the role of building operators for OCC, while Q4 describes the implications for designers. Then, Q5 and Q6 discuss the role and possibilities of OCC for load flexibility, and for pandemic induced paradigm shifts in the built environment, respectively. In Q7, we provide a taxonomy and selection process of OCC, while Q8 details real world implementation case studies. Finally, Q9 explains the limits of OCC, and Q10 provides a vision for future research opportunities. Our findings offer valuable insights for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers, contributing to the ongoing discourse on the future of building operations management.

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