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Energies
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Design Considerations for Low Energy Resilient Buildings
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Design Considerations for Low Energy Resilient Buildings

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "G: Energy and Buildings".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 August 2021) | Viewed by 9390

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Wahid Maref

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Construction Engineering Department, École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS), University of Quebec, Montréal, QC H3C 1K3, Canada
Interests: building science; building physics; modelling and numerical simulation of building heat; moisture transfer; fluid mechanics; CFD modeling; energy system and performance analyses; national and international building codes; design and development of test bench; assessment of a building envelope hygrothermal performance; building envelope’s energy and airtightness analysis; energy management;

Special Issue Information

The construction sector has had rapid advances and is currently facing multiple challenges. One of the main challenges is the building’s response to different environmental and extreme conditions due to climate change. Global warming and climate change have affected our way of living and built environment. In regions with harsh climatic conditions, a substantial share of energy is used for heating and cooling the buildings. The energy consumption of the building sector is high, and although the situation differs from country to country, buildings are responsible for about 30–40% of the total energy demand. In Europe, however, buildings are responsible for 40–50% of energy use, and the largest share of energy in buildings is used for heating.

All countries have an enormous building stock that was constructed before the advent of energy efficiency policies. Consequently, there is a need for support to enhance the energy and moisture performance of residential and commercial buildings. Retrofit is one of the most cost-effective and primary strategies for enhancing the energy efficiency of the built environment and reducing energy consumption in buildings. One of the main challenges of retrofits is an assessment of the condensation inside the building envelopes that may result in moisture-related problems.

This Special Issue aims to assess the potential effects of climate change on the energy and hygrothermal performance and durability of buildings.

Prof. Dr. Wahid Maref
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Heat, air, and moisture transport
  • Low energy
  • Resilient buildings
  • Construction designs
  • Risk of condensation and mould growth
  • Air leakage
  • Exterior insulation
  • Hygrothermal performance
  • Energy performance
  • Climate change

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

36 pages, 26932 KiB  
Article
Advanced Modeling of Enclosed Airspaces to Determine Thermal Resistance for Building Applications
by Hamed H. Saber and David W. Yarbrough
Energies 2021, 14(22), 7772; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en14227772 - 19 Nov 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2038
Abstract
Enclosed airspaces to reduce heat flow have been recognized for well over 100 years. Airspaces with one or more reflective surfaces define reflective insulation (RI) assemblies, a product type used in walls, roofs, windows with multiple panes, curtain walls and skylights. The thermal [...] Read more.
Enclosed airspaces to reduce heat flow have been recognized for well over 100 years. Airspaces with one or more reflective surfaces define reflective insulation (RI) assemblies, a product type used in walls, roofs, windows with multiple panes, curtain walls and skylights. The thermal resistance (R value) of airspaces depends on the emittance of all surfaces, airspace dimensions and orientation, heat flow direction and surfaces temperatures. The modeling of RI now includes CFD coupled with radiation to quantify the total heat transfer. This study compares a validated model for airspace R values with existing methods such as ISO 6946 and hot-box results that provide the R values in the ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals. The existing methods do not include an airspace aspect ratio. This study showed that the aspect ratio can impact the R value by a factor of two. The impact of aspect ratio was calculated for double airspaces variation such as that for single airspaces. The present calculations are two-dimensional and also consider all the bounding airspace surfaces, while previous methods are one-dimensional and do not include surface temperature variations or detailed radiative transport. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Design Considerations for Low Energy Resilient Buildings)
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31 pages, 18857 KiB  
Article
Assessing the Energy, Indoor Air Quality, and Moisture Performance for a Three-Story Building Using an Integrated Model, Part Three: Development of Integrated Model and Applications
by Seyedmohammadreza Heibati, Wahid Maref and Hamed H. Saber
Energies 2021, 14(18), 5648; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en14185648 - 8 Sep 2021
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 2727
Abstract
The overall building performance depends mainly on the energy performance, indoor air quality, and moisture performance. In order to accurately calculate the building performance, the development of a model with the ability to integrate all three performances is required. In this research, a [...] Read more.
The overall building performance depends mainly on the energy performance, indoor air quality, and moisture performance. In order to accurately calculate the building performance, the development of a model with the ability to integrate all three performances is required. In this research, a combination of three models namely EnergyPlus for energy, CONTAM for indoor air quality, and WUFI for moisture transport are used to develop an integrated model. The mechanism of this combination is based on the exchange of temperatures, airflows, and heating-cooling flows control variables between all three sub-models. By using the paired sample t-test, an integrated model is verified and its accuracy is validated. The accuracy of the integrated model is verified by the paired sample t-test. In order to analyze the accuracy of the integrated model in comparison with single models, four scenarios of airtight fan off, airtight fan on, leaky fan off, and leaky fan on are defined for a three-story-house subjected to three different climate cities of Montreal, Vancouver, and Miami. Percentage differences of simulated measures with the ASHRAE Standard are considered as the performance criteria. The simulated results by single and integrated models are compared and analyzed. Finally, the scenarios with the high performances are evaluated in terms of energy efficiency, indoor air quality, and moisture for Montreal, Vancouver, and Miami. Overall, it can be concluded that an integrated model should be developed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Design Considerations for Low Energy Resilient Buildings)
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21 pages, 4100 KiB  
Article
Influence of Temperature and Moisture Content on Thermal Performance of Green Roof Media
by Bohan Shao, Caterina Valeo, Phalguni Mukhopadhyaya and Jianxun He
Energies 2021, 14(9), 2421; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en14092421 - 23 Apr 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1696
Abstract
The influence of moisture content on substrate thermal conductivity at different temperatures was investigated for four different commercially available substrates for green roofs. In the unfrozen state, as moisture content increased, thermal conductivity increased linearly. In the phase transition zone between +5 and [...] Read more.
The influence of moisture content on substrate thermal conductivity at different temperatures was investigated for four different commercially available substrates for green roofs. In the unfrozen state, as moisture content increased, thermal conductivity increased linearly. In the phase transition zone between +5 and −10 °C, as temperature decreased, thermal conductivity increased sharply during the transition from water to ice. When the substrate was frozen, thermal conductivity varied exponentially with substrate moisture content prior to freezing. Power functions were found between thermal conductivity and temperature. Two equally sized, green roof test cells were constructed and tested to compare various roof configurations including a bare roof, varying media thickness for a green roof, and vegetation. The results show that compared with the bare roof, there is a 75% reduction in the interior temperature’s amplitude for the green roof with 150 mm thick substrate. When a sedum mat was added, there was a 20% reduction in the amplitude of the inner temperature as compared with the cell without a sedum mat. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Design Considerations for Low Energy Resilient Buildings)
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24 pages, 8460 KiB  
Article
Investigating the Effect of Dust Accumulation on the Solar Reflectivity of Coating Materials for Cool Roof Applications
by Hamed H. Saber, Ali E. Hajiah, Saleh A. Alshehri and Hussain J. Hussain
Energies 2021, 14(2), 445; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en14020445 - 15 Jan 2021
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 2217
Abstract
Cool roofs use reflective materials or coatings to reflect a portion of the incident solar radiation. This results in a lowering the surface temperature of the cool roof compared to black roofs, and thus helps reduce the cooling energy loads during the summer [...] Read more.
Cool roofs use reflective materials or coatings to reflect a portion of the incident solar radiation. This results in a lowering the surface temperature of the cool roof compared to black roofs, and thus helps reduce the cooling energy loads during the summer season. The research reported in this paper was conducted to assess experimentally and numerically the performance of cool and black roofs that were subjected to the hot, humid and dusty climate of Jubail Industrial City (JIC). This paper focused on characterizing one of the important properties of reflective coating material (RCM), which is its solar reflectivity. In this study, the effect of dust/dirt accumulation on the solar reflectivity of the RCM was investigated at different exposure times to the natural weathering conditions of JIC. The test results showed that dust and dirt can significantly contribute in reducing the solar reflectivity of the RCM. As such, a number of cleaning processes were conducted on the surface of the RCM so as to increase its solar reflectivity. The effect of each cleaning process on the solar reflectivity of the RCM was investigated. Finally, this paper provides a test protocol and procedure for characterizing the dust concentration/intensity on the surfaces of the RCM and cleaning this material after different exposure times to a natural and polluted climate. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Design Considerations for Low Energy Resilient Buildings)
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