Farid Fouchal

Impact of occupant behaviour on the energy-saving potential of retrofit measures for a public building in the UK

ABSTRACT In building refurbishment projects, dynamic building simulation is popularly used to predict the energy-saving potential of various refurbishment scenarios. However, in this process, it is not clear whether occupant behaviour should be carefully modelled due to the lack of evidence about its impact on the prediction results. To answer this question, this study selected a UK public building and used dynamic building simulation to predict the energy-saving potential of common refurbishment measures, under various occupant behavioural conditions. The results revealed that for the case study building occupants’ heating behaviour has a significant impact on the predicted energy-saving potential of all evaluated refurbishment measures: when changing from passive heating users to active heating users, the energy-saving potential was nearly doubled. Although occupants’ window opening behaviour was not shown to be as important as heating behaviour for the refurbishment of the case study building, it has a specific influence on the refurbishment measure of increasing window layers: when windows are opened longer, the effectiveness of increasing window layers on promoting the building energy efficiency is decreased. According to the findings from this study, occupant behaviour should be considered as an important aspect in building refurbishment projects.

Adaptive screen printing for rapid manufacturing

Purpose – To develop a rapid manufacturing process for high‐volume free from fabrication of parts that is based on the high speed printing method which is screen printing. This technique will also be applied for printing in general.Design/methodology/approach – This method involves continuous change in a layers pattern (negative image of the layer) according to a very thin slice of the object to be printed. Three adaptive screen printing methods are proposed as an alternative to two dimensional screen printing. A comparative analysis is conducted and the possibility of combining the method is proposed.Findings – Each of the three methods studied required further work as they all had major constraints. However, their combination may be the solution to the development of a rapid manufacturing process.Originality/value – The originality is in the adaptive screen principle the screen being used will be capable to auto‐change the pattern of the layer to be printed instead of introducing a new stencil for ever...

Monitoring the polymerization of a diglycidyl ether bisphenol-A/2,2'-dimethyl-4,4'-methylenebis (cyclohexylamine) matrix with a Fourier transform infrared optical fibre sensor

Abstract An optical fibre sensor (OFS) for the online monitoring of the polymerization reaction is described in this paper. The sensor, based on Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis, was used to study the reaction between diglycidyl ether bisphenol-A (DGEBA) and 2,2′-dimethyl-4,4′-methylenebis(cyclohexylamine) (DMMB-CHA). Changes in concentrations of reactants and products were monitored over the curing period at different temperatures by the FT-IR technique, and from DSC runs the variation in the enthalpy of reaction over time for different curing temperatures was determined. Plots of fractional conversions versus time from the two methods were produced and compared. An attempt to deduce glass transition temperatures from the fractional conversion curves produced by FT-IR is also described. This involved the use of the fitting polynomial calculated from the DSC results. As a result, a sensor designed for embedding into a system curing at elevated temperature was constructed and tested.

Quantifying part irregularities and subsequent morphology manipulation in stereolithography plastic injection moulding

Abstract The direct use of moulds produced by stereolithography (SL) provides a rapid tooling technique which allows low volume production by plastic injection moulding. The greatest advantage of the process is that it provides parts that are the same as those that would be produced by metal tooling in a fraction of the time and cost. However, work by the authors demonstrates that the parts possess different characteristics to those produced by metal tooling. This knowledge defies the greatest advantages of the SL injection moulding tooling process – the moulded parts do not replicate parts that would be produced by metal tooling. This work specifically demonstrates that a different rate of part shrinkage is experienced and subsequently investigates the mechanisms in SL tooling that induce these different part properties. The work culminates in different approaches to modifying the moulding process which allow the production of parts whose key morphological characteristics are closer to those that have been produced from metal moulds.

Design methodology for integrating multipath systems (building services)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on a geometrical integration methodology that can be used to organise some types of these systems. Most multipath delivery systems, such as Building Services (BSs), are arbitrarily distributed with no known solution to reduce the complexity in the way channels are arranged. Design/methodology/approach – Integration for optimal functionality through reduction of geometrical complexity is achieved by understanding the elements of complexity within current practices; identifying commonalities between the various components which can be used for integration; performing an axiomatic design to resolve design complications; adopting theory of inventive problem-solving for methodology and process development towards optimal functionality; and generating a mathematical solution to inform digital modelling of optimal design. The study takes into account thermophysical and electromagnetic interactions between utilities and uses novel mathematical manipulations based o...

ICT-enabled energy efficiency – a lens onto practices of other sectors

Purpose – The potential and opportunity offered by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to enable Energy Efficient (EE) viable operations has been thoroughly laboured with respect to sustainability goals. Often the issue is not a lack of technological options, but rather an issue in understanding what choices will lead to the greatest impact. This paper summarises the outcome of a research work undertaken within Roadmap Enabling Vision and Strategy for ICT-enabled EE (REViSITE), an EU-funded project tasked with investigating migration pathways from current state of the art to a common vision for ICT-enabled EE with respect to four energy intensive sectors (energy grids, built environment, manufacturing and lighting). In this paper the focus is particularly on the built environment and how it might benefit from other sectors. Design/methodology/approach – The REViSITE methodology/framework combined Life Cycle thinking, an adapted capability Maturity Framework and the REViSITE-developed SMARTT ...

Design approach for the integration of services in buildings

This paper describes a novel methodology to group building services into a single trunking system at minimal proximal distances between them. The study focused on solving the geometrical complexity encountered in conventional arrangements of building services, while taking into account thermo-physical and electromagnetic interactions between services together with building regulations. The potential solution for delivery and distribution of building services in any number of directions is an ‘onion layers’ type of design, using novel mathematical manipulations based on manifolds of spherical and cylindrical geometries joined using Bezier surfaces. Computer-aided design iterations were undertaken for channelling six building services into a single unit including water, air, electricity and data. It consists of concentric cylindrical-spherical shells superimposed at few millimetres gaps (channels) for which physical prototypes were produced. Practical application: Successfully integrating building services such as water, air, electricity and data into a single trunking delivery system would offer an important advancement in reducing services installation cost, maintenance and the running cost of a building. Current design tools and techniques do not offer any solution for such integration; hence the current development of a multi-services trunking system. Subject to satisfactory compliance with health and safety requirements, plus maintenance issues, the system is proposed for embedding into building construction walls, panels or for placement into a confined space as a first step towards next generation building service. It is foreseen that many industries and business will be involved in the early stage of this development.

Decision Support Tool for Energy Efficient Building Retrofit Actions

This paper shows a process of developing a decision support tool to automatically generate building retrofit alternatives and rank them using energy performance analysis, user requirements, relevant benchmarks and regulations. Refinement of the retrofit scenarios follows a set of steps from creation of a Building Information Model of a base-case representing the status of the building at the time of the analysis, then creation of combinations for the possible retrofit scenarios. TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) based multi criteria approach is adopted as it relies on identified best alternatives using selected criteria. Ranking of alternatives follows their relative closeness to the identified ideal alternative. Best options are graphically presented.

Maintenance, Retrofit and Operation Decision Support Tool for Both Domestic and Non-Domestic Buildings

There is great potential for novel decision support tools to aid in the provision of tailored advice for both domestic and non-domestic buildings. The method described in this paper will rely on a combination of data from BIM, monitoring technologies such as smart sensors and performance-based analysis, user behaviour, and expert knowledge, for the development of a decision support tool for maintenance, retrofit and operation. It will present the concepts and research work behind the development of a novel tool to automatically generate maintenance and retrofit advice at different levels of abstraction taking into consideration the requirements of different stakeholders, building performance analysis (BPA), standards guidelines and regulations. Design4Energy (D4E) EU project engaged into the development of an optimised design methodology, which uses decisions making tool based on expertise from a combination of different subject fields feed into a statistical model. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is adopted for the development of the tool as it uses priority theory which decomposes any complex multidimensional decision making problem into a system of hierarchies. This looks into the historic type of experiences while predicting the future building performance and takes into account the operation scenarios and maintenance activities. It logically incorporates data and expert’s judgement in the model to identify criteria to enables decision making.

Modelling and Prediction of the Diglycidyl Ether Bisphenol-A/2,2′-dimethyl-4,4′-methylenebis (cyclohexylamine) Reaction

Abstract Differential scanning calorimetry is used for the analysis and quantitative evaluation of the reaction between diglycidyl ether bisphenol-A and 2,2′-dimethyl-4,4′-methylenebis (cyclohexylamine) according to changes in concentrations of reactants and products. First, this concerned determining the variation in enthalpy of reaction over time for different curing temperatures, plotting of glass transition temperatures versus time, calculation of a polynomial for glass transition temperature against fractional conversion, and the production of plots of fractional conversions versus time. Secondly, the fractional conversion data were used for the kinetic analysis. The line of best fit to these data points revealed an essentially logarithmic relationship that was used to evaluate the reaction rate, dx/dt corresponding to the conversion x, then plot the changes in concentrations (in moles) of all the reactants and products involved in the reaction versus time. This produced a quantitative prediction of the reaction over the curing period.