The Thermoheliodome is the prototype of an experimental pavilion that produces comfort through th... more The Thermoheliodome is the prototype of an experimental pavilion that produces comfort through the manipulation of the mean radiant temperature generated by its surfaces. The concept involves combining technologies of integrated radiant piping with an evaporative cooling tower or an electric heater, and the creation of a smart shape that reflects the radiant temperature of each pipe everywhere inside the structure.
The “Dome Control System” measures the physical parameters behind the prototype. It’s an environmental control station through which Arduino senses the environment by receiving inputs from many sensors. Different kinds of sensors have been used to monitor the water temperature of the cooling tower or of the electric heater, the water flow rate of the radiant piping, the temperature, the relative humidity and the mean radiant temperature inside and outside the Dome, even using unprecedented methods to sense the mean radiant temperature.
The combination of this new and emergent technologies provides operation and control of the physical parameters we are interested in investigating, so as to facilitate research into the perceptions of comfort inside the Dome.
As the world adapts to dual trends of climate change and urbanization, tall office buildings in h... more As the world adapts to dual trends of climate change and urbanization, tall office buildings in hot and humid climate zones near the equator are among the prime candidates for a significant change in design approach. Though many individualized improvements to operating systems, envelopes and material selections have been introduced in recent years, it is generally agreed a holistic approach is needed to truly capitalize on the smaller-scale innovations. With a focus on reducing the necessary size of the services plenum, in this paper, an alternative paradigm for the optimization of space, material, and energy use in buildings is presented: a holistic integration of all building systems – structural, mechanical, and electrical – across a building’s entire lifecycle, from early-stage design to construction and operation
First field experiments on stack effect induced by split type air-conditioners.Temperature rise o... more First field experiments on stack effect induced by split type air-conditioners.Temperature rise of 10–13 °C over 20 storeys due to stack effect.Temperature rise of 9 °C due to “stuck effect”, caused by recirculating hot air.Measured on-coil temperatures of 50 °C for upper storeys.Significant performance reduction, COP reduced by 18% (stack only) 32% (combined).The use of air-conditioning, the largest energy demand for buildings in the tropics, is increasing as regional population and affluence grow. The majority of installed systems are split type air-conditioners. While the performance of new equipment is much better, the influence of the microclimate where the condensing units are installed is often overlooked. Several studies have used CFD simulations to analyse the stack effect, a buoyancy-driven airflow induced by heat rejected from condensing units. This leads to higher on-coil temperatures, deteriorating the performance of the air-conditioners. We present the first field measurements from a 24-storey building in Singapore. A network of wireless temperature sensors measured the temperature around the stack of condensing units. We found that the temperatures in the void space increased continuously along the height of the building by 10–13 °C, showing a significant stack effect from the rejected heat from condensing units. We also found that hot air gets stuck behind louvres, built as aesthetic barriers, which increases the temperature another 9 °C. Temperatures of around 50 °C at the inlet of the condensing units for floors 10 and above are the combined result, reducing the unit efficiency by 32% compared to the undisturbed design case. This significant effect is completely neglected in building design and performance evaluation, and only with an integrated design process can truly efficient solutions be realised.
The Thermoheliodome is a prototype experimental pavilion that produces comfort through the manipu... more The Thermoheliodome is a prototype experimental pavilion that produces comfort through the manipulation of the mean radiant temperature generated by a combination of evaporative cooling and radiant heat reflection. We present the development of a sensing and analysis method for measuring the impact on radiant temperature and other performance data for the space, along with the initial system measurements. This is an environmental control station through which low cost microcontrollers enable distributed networked nodes to take measurements of relevant system parameters. The system measurements show a reduction of mean radiant temperature by 2-3 °C using evaporative cooling and strategic reflection.
SUMMARY Typical infrastructure in office buildings does not facilitate the creation of a sustaina... more SUMMARY Typical infrastructure in office buildings does not facilitate the creation of a sustainable building, effectively using energy, materials, and space. One must recognize that sustainability doesn't only refer to the use of energy, but also to spatial quality, user comfort, and ease of facility management. Different from the commonplace hierarchical systems, our goal is to distribute infrastructure such that
ABSTRACT Ground heat is a renewable resource that is readily available for buildings in cool clim... more ABSTRACT Ground heat is a renewable resource that is readily available for buildings in cool climates, but its relatively low temperature requires the use of a heat pump to extract it for heating. We developed a system that uses low temperature ground heat directly in a building wall to reduce transmission heat losses. The Active Low Exergy Geothermal Insulation Systems (ALEGIS) minimizes exergy demand and maximizes the use of renewable geothermal heat from the ground. A fluid is pumped into a small pipe network in an external layer of a wall construction that is linked to a ground heat source. This decouples the building from the outside temperature, therefore eliminating large peak demands and reducing the primary energy demand. Our steady-state analysis shows that at a design temperature of -10 degrees C the 6 cm thick active insulation system has equivalent performance to 11 cm of passive insulation. Our comparison of heating performance of a building with our active insulation system versus a building with static insulation of the same thickness shows a 15% reduction in annual electricity demand, and thus exergy input. We present an overview of the operation and analysis of our low exergy concept and its modeled performance.
ABSTRACT The façades of the shop houses in Rochor and Chinatown shine brightly and in full colour... more ABSTRACT The façades of the shop houses in Rochor and Chinatown shine brightly and in full colour, but as soon as we step behind, into the backlanes, we are met by heat and noise from hundreds of split type airconditioners. Backlanes in low-rise shop house typologies are generally utilised for support activities of the major economic activities on the main streets such as waste disposal and delivery. This is also where we find today batteries of air-cooled split type condensers that are inherently energy inefficient. We suggest a novel technical solution, the heat bus system, that not only reduces energy use by 50% but also ameliorates the thermal microclimate by introducing water-cooled condenser connected to a central cooling tower, increasing the thermal comfort for pedestrians. It can also used as a trigger for architectural and urban design interventions that upgrade the backlane qualitatively and transform the backlane into a space that fosters social encounters and new economic activities. The nature of the shared infrastructure can be utilised to re-evaluate the neighbourhood, how to increase its value for occupants and owners. The suggested design variation is a prototypical example of applying the heat bus system to a horizontal setting of a backlane. Combined with vertical high-rise solutions, this system may be adapted to any kind of urban typology in the tropical climate.
ABSTRACT The paper presents a new concept for a low pressure drop supply system suited for the ve... more ABSTRACT The paper presents a new concept for a low pressure drop supply system suited for the ventilation of office spaces. Lower pressure losses for the air distribution allow a downsizing of the fans cutting down the investment costs for the equipment and the energy consumption during operation. Great potential savings in high-valued energy (exergy) are possible in large buildings where this concept could reduce pressure drops by a factor up to ten. This supply system consists of decentralized air handling units installed near the façade. They feed an interlaced duct network that is integrated in the floor construction. The air is supplied to the room at very low momentum through openings in the floor. Following the low exergy principle the heat exchangers of the air-handling units strictly operate at supply temperatures close to the room temperature, and hence would allow a very efficient operation of a heat pump with a high coefficient of performance. The proposed duct network design eliminates the problem often found in decentralized systems of insufficient air supply to the core of the building. It provides a regular distribution of the air over the entire floor space even in large open plan offices and under non-homogeneous pressure conditions from the wind on the façade or from a locally demand-controlled exhaust system as described by (Baldini and Leibundgut, 2005). As a proof of concept a steady state analysis of the air distribution has been performed for different network topologies. The simulations showed that an effective distribution of the air is possible even for non-homogeneous pressure boundary conditions when the network's topology is close to the one of a mesh. The distribution system is most robust to changing boundary conditions if the topology of the network is such that the velocities within the pipes are small enough to lead to nearly homogeneous static pressures.
The Thermoheliodome is the prototype of an experimental pavilion that produces comfort through th... more The Thermoheliodome is the prototype of an experimental pavilion that produces comfort through the manipulation of the mean radiant temperature generated by its surfaces. The concept involves combining technologies of integrated radiant piping with an evaporative cooling tower or an electric heater, and the creation of a smart shape that reflects the radiant temperature of each pipe everywhere inside the structure.
The “Dome Control System” measures the physical parameters behind the prototype. It’s an environmental control station through which Arduino senses the environment by receiving inputs from many sensors. Different kinds of sensors have been used to monitor the water temperature of the cooling tower or of the electric heater, the water flow rate of the radiant piping, the temperature, the relative humidity and the mean radiant temperature inside and outside the Dome, even using unprecedented methods to sense the mean radiant temperature.
The combination of this new and emergent technologies provides operation and control of the physical parameters we are interested in investigating, so as to facilitate research into the perceptions of comfort inside the Dome.
As the world adapts to dual trends of climate change and urbanization, tall office buildings in h... more As the world adapts to dual trends of climate change and urbanization, tall office buildings in hot and humid climate zones near the equator are among the prime candidates for a significant change in design approach. Though many individualized improvements to operating systems, envelopes and material selections have been introduced in recent years, it is generally agreed a holistic approach is needed to truly capitalize on the smaller-scale innovations. With a focus on reducing the necessary size of the services plenum, in this paper, an alternative paradigm for the optimization of space, material, and energy use in buildings is presented: a holistic integration of all building systems – structural, mechanical, and electrical – across a building’s entire lifecycle, from early-stage design to construction and operation
First field experiments on stack effect induced by split type air-conditioners.Temperature rise o... more First field experiments on stack effect induced by split type air-conditioners.Temperature rise of 10–13 °C over 20 storeys due to stack effect.Temperature rise of 9 °C due to “stuck effect”, caused by recirculating hot air.Measured on-coil temperatures of 50 °C for upper storeys.Significant performance reduction, COP reduced by 18% (stack only) 32% (combined).The use of air-conditioning, the largest energy demand for buildings in the tropics, is increasing as regional population and affluence grow. The majority of installed systems are split type air-conditioners. While the performance of new equipment is much better, the influence of the microclimate where the condensing units are installed is often overlooked. Several studies have used CFD simulations to analyse the stack effect, a buoyancy-driven airflow induced by heat rejected from condensing units. This leads to higher on-coil temperatures, deteriorating the performance of the air-conditioners. We present the first field measurements from a 24-storey building in Singapore. A network of wireless temperature sensors measured the temperature around the stack of condensing units. We found that the temperatures in the void space increased continuously along the height of the building by 10–13 °C, showing a significant stack effect from the rejected heat from condensing units. We also found that hot air gets stuck behind louvres, built as aesthetic barriers, which increases the temperature another 9 °C. Temperatures of around 50 °C at the inlet of the condensing units for floors 10 and above are the combined result, reducing the unit efficiency by 32% compared to the undisturbed design case. This significant effect is completely neglected in building design and performance evaluation, and only with an integrated design process can truly efficient solutions be realised.
The Thermoheliodome is a prototype experimental pavilion that produces comfort through the manipu... more The Thermoheliodome is a prototype experimental pavilion that produces comfort through the manipulation of the mean radiant temperature generated by a combination of evaporative cooling and radiant heat reflection. We present the development of a sensing and analysis method for measuring the impact on radiant temperature and other performance data for the space, along with the initial system measurements. This is an environmental control station through which low cost microcontrollers enable distributed networked nodes to take measurements of relevant system parameters. The system measurements show a reduction of mean radiant temperature by 2-3 °C using evaporative cooling and strategic reflection.
SUMMARY Typical infrastructure in office buildings does not facilitate the creation of a sustaina... more SUMMARY Typical infrastructure in office buildings does not facilitate the creation of a sustainable building, effectively using energy, materials, and space. One must recognize that sustainability doesn't only refer to the use of energy, but also to spatial quality, user comfort, and ease of facility management. Different from the commonplace hierarchical systems, our goal is to distribute infrastructure such that
ABSTRACT Ground heat is a renewable resource that is readily available for buildings in cool clim... more ABSTRACT Ground heat is a renewable resource that is readily available for buildings in cool climates, but its relatively low temperature requires the use of a heat pump to extract it for heating. We developed a system that uses low temperature ground heat directly in a building wall to reduce transmission heat losses. The Active Low Exergy Geothermal Insulation Systems (ALEGIS) minimizes exergy demand and maximizes the use of renewable geothermal heat from the ground. A fluid is pumped into a small pipe network in an external layer of a wall construction that is linked to a ground heat source. This decouples the building from the outside temperature, therefore eliminating large peak demands and reducing the primary energy demand. Our steady-state analysis shows that at a design temperature of -10 degrees C the 6 cm thick active insulation system has equivalent performance to 11 cm of passive insulation. Our comparison of heating performance of a building with our active insulation system versus a building with static insulation of the same thickness shows a 15% reduction in annual electricity demand, and thus exergy input. We present an overview of the operation and analysis of our low exergy concept and its modeled performance.
ABSTRACT The façades of the shop houses in Rochor and Chinatown shine brightly and in full colour... more ABSTRACT The façades of the shop houses in Rochor and Chinatown shine brightly and in full colour, but as soon as we step behind, into the backlanes, we are met by heat and noise from hundreds of split type airconditioners. Backlanes in low-rise shop house typologies are generally utilised for support activities of the major economic activities on the main streets such as waste disposal and delivery. This is also where we find today batteries of air-cooled split type condensers that are inherently energy inefficient. We suggest a novel technical solution, the heat bus system, that not only reduces energy use by 50% but also ameliorates the thermal microclimate by introducing water-cooled condenser connected to a central cooling tower, increasing the thermal comfort for pedestrians. It can also used as a trigger for architectural and urban design interventions that upgrade the backlane qualitatively and transform the backlane into a space that fosters social encounters and new economic activities. The nature of the shared infrastructure can be utilised to re-evaluate the neighbourhood, how to increase its value for occupants and owners. The suggested design variation is a prototypical example of applying the heat bus system to a horizontal setting of a backlane. Combined with vertical high-rise solutions, this system may be adapted to any kind of urban typology in the tropical climate.
ABSTRACT The paper presents a new concept for a low pressure drop supply system suited for the ve... more ABSTRACT The paper presents a new concept for a low pressure drop supply system suited for the ventilation of office spaces. Lower pressure losses for the air distribution allow a downsizing of the fans cutting down the investment costs for the equipment and the energy consumption during operation. Great potential savings in high-valued energy (exergy) are possible in large buildings where this concept could reduce pressure drops by a factor up to ten. This supply system consists of decentralized air handling units installed near the façade. They feed an interlaced duct network that is integrated in the floor construction. The air is supplied to the room at very low momentum through openings in the floor. Following the low exergy principle the heat exchangers of the air-handling units strictly operate at supply temperatures close to the room temperature, and hence would allow a very efficient operation of a heat pump with a high coefficient of performance. The proposed duct network design eliminates the problem often found in decentralized systems of insufficient air supply to the core of the building. It provides a regular distribution of the air over the entire floor space even in large open plan offices and under non-homogeneous pressure conditions from the wind on the façade or from a locally demand-controlled exhaust system as described by (Baldini and Leibundgut, 2005). As a proof of concept a steady state analysis of the air distribution has been performed for different network topologies. The simulations showed that an effective distribution of the air is possible even for non-homogeneous pressure boundary conditions when the network's topology is close to the one of a mesh. The distribution system is most robust to changing boundary conditions if the topology of the network is such that the velocities within the pipes are small enough to lead to nearly homogeneous static pressures.
The “Dome Control System” measures the physical parameters behind the prototype. It’s an environm... more The “Dome Control System” measures the physical parameters behind the prototype. It’s an environmental control station through which Arduino senses the environment by receiving inputs from many sensors.
Uploads
The “Dome Control System” measures the physical parameters behind the prototype. It’s an environmental control station through which Arduino senses the environment by receiving inputs from many sensors. Different kinds of sensors have been used to monitor the water temperature of the cooling tower or of the electric heater, the water flow rate of the radiant piping, the temperature, the relative humidity and the mean radiant temperature inside and outside the Dome, even using unprecedented methods to sense the mean radiant temperature.
The combination of this new and emergent technologies provides operation and control of the physical parameters we are interested in investigating, so as to facilitate research into the perceptions of comfort inside the Dome.
The “Dome Control System” measures the physical parameters behind the prototype. It’s an environmental control station through which Arduino senses the environment by receiving inputs from many sensors. Different kinds of sensors have been used to monitor the water temperature of the cooling tower or of the electric heater, the water flow rate of the radiant piping, the temperature, the relative humidity and the mean radiant temperature inside and outside the Dome, even using unprecedented methods to sense the mean radiant temperature.
The combination of this new and emergent technologies provides operation and control of the physical parameters we are interested in investigating, so as to facilitate research into the perceptions of comfort inside the Dome.