José T. San-José

A proposal for environmental indicators towards industrial building sustainable assessment

The construction sector carries out a very important role in the development of society. It is a basic component of economic activity, having a great influence on employment generation and country growth. The sector generates appreciable environmental changes and effects throughout the planet, leading to gradual exhaustion of natural resources and contamination of basic elements, such as air, water and soil. Recently, there have been advances in favour of more environmentally friendly buildings. Basically, sustainable construction has centred on residential and office buildings. It could be said that there is a lack of sustainability in the construction of industrial buildings, as they present characteristics which differ from other building typologies. This article aims to assess and analyze industrial building environmental effects, and considers a set of green study criteria, such as: location, materials, energy and water consumption, construction and deconstruction characteristics, and waste management in industrial building. At the same time, the studies are hierarchically structured into different assessment elements, such as: criteria, subcriteria and, finally, indicators, comprising the assessment model.

Porous Asphalt Mixtures with 100% Siderurgic Aggregates

In this research, the possibility of making a porous asphalt mixture manufactured completely with recycled aggregates from carbon steel production was explored. Electric arc furnace slag (EAFS) was used as coarse aggregate and ladle furnace slag (LFS) as fine aggregate and filler. Initially, the properties of both slags and their suitability to be used in the manufacture of porous mixtures were analyzed. Then, a series of asphalt mixtures were developed incorporating these slags and they were compared with a reference mixture, made with conventional components. A series of tests were performed, including concepts such as mechanical behavior, durability, moisture susceptibility, rutting resistance, permeability or skid resistance. The results show that it is possible to make a suitable porous asphalt mixture with 100% of steel slag aggregates, complying with the standard requirements and obtaining a durable and environmentally sustainable mixture.

MANAGEMENT AND ASSESSMENT OF HERITAGE BUILDINGS IN THE CITY OF HAVANA THROUGH THE PRIORITIZATION OF EMERGENCY ACTIONS

Declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, in 1982, the Historical Center of Havana, occupying an area of 2.14 km, has 3,510 buildings, many of which now severely dilapidated. In fact, the Historical Center is in need of preferential action, due to the severity of the deterioration of its buildings. The situation is continually worsened following each hurricane season, and their accompanying tropical storms that have caused irreparable damage to buildings over the years. After a careful inspection of the heritage buildings of the Historical Center, it was possible to identify those in danger of imminent collapse and those with a useful life that could be prolonged through the implementation of the necessary emergency actions. In response to both challenges, a multi-criterion instrument based on the MIVES system was applied, with the purpose of prioritizing in an objective and justifiable way the necessary repairs and degrees of intervention. This instrument is based on requirements, criteria and indicators, all of which are selected, analysed and approved by a specially appointed panel of experts that quantifies all the factors in the value chain.

A METHOD FOR ASSESSING CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION OF INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS BY ENGINEERING STUDENTS

In this paper experiences about the implementation of creative activities in industrial engineering degrees are related. These activities were used in engineering courses to improve the creative skills of the students. Thus, the main goal was to make them capable to design innovative products using ideation methods and working in groups. Although there are some works in the literature about the implementation of creative methods in engineering degrees none of them have established well defined approaches which are able to assess the creativity and innovation level of products in an effective way. Indeed, one of the main problems that have been found by instructors during the classes is how students can evaluate their own creative solutions and the degree of innovation of the designed products. There are no many works in the literature focusing in this topic and all of them have been developed to be applied by engineers with long experience in design. These methods measure the innovation of products by the quantification of a number of factors. However, these factors present some difficulties for students who are not used to work with them. In fact, one of the main problems found by instructors in implementing creativity procedures at university level is that students do not have enough experience about the assessment of engineering products and their degree of innovation. This paper describes a new procedure for the measurement of the level of creativity that new ideas provide. It can be also used for the measurement of the innovation of products. A case study is presented to illustrate the method and evaluate its effectiveness. In this activity an engineering design problem is proposed to the students and they have to find the best solution. Brainstorming is used as idea generation method and they have to measure their creativity using the proposed approach. The main advantage of the method is that it can be easily used by students and instructors. In this way the students can evaluate their own ideas in order to sort them and select the most creative ones. The method works with a three dimensional scale which are level, scope and goals. The comparison of the proposed method with other existing approaches allows highlighting the easier understanding of the factors to be evaluated.

Innovative Strengthening Solution Based on Textile Reinforced Mortar for Stone Masonry Arches

This paper aims to present the design, strengthening and testing of full scale masonry walls and arches. The preservation of our cultural heritage is a really important topic. Majority of masonry structures are deteriorated because of ageing effects, load increments, movements at their foundations, etc. Because of this, retrofitting is needed. In order to afford this problem, a compatible and minimally invasive strengthening technique based on Textile Reinforced Mortar (TRM) is developed. The experimental campaign consists of the characterisation of the constitutive materials of the stone structures and the strengthening textile and mortar (TRM has been characterised by pure tensile tests). Furthermore, the influence of the different arrangements of the masonry and mortar type has been analysed by testing 24 masonry prisms. Finally, 12 full-scale stone arches have been erected, strengthened and tested. The purpose is to compare the mechanical behaviour up to failure of both unstrengthened and strengthened structures. During the tests the effectiveness of the technique has been proved being the ultimate load up to 21 times higher.