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Buildings
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Innovative Approaches to Achieving Building Energy Efficiency
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Innovative Approaches to Achieving Building Energy Efficiency

A special issue of Buildings (ISSN 2075-5309). This special issue belongs to the section "Building Energy, Physics, Environment, and Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2018) | Viewed by 28919

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Zhenjun Ma

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Sustainable Buildings Research Centre, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia
Interests: building big data analytics; building energy efficiency; HVAC control and optimization; desiccant cooling systems; thermal energy storage using phase change materials; solar photovoltaic thermal collectors
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Due to the rapid increase in living standards, together with climate change, energy use in buildings will continuously increase in the coming years. Improving energy efficiency in buildings is, therefore, essential to reduce global energy usage and promote the sustainability of our built environments, as a large proportion of the total energy used worldwide is from buildings.

This Special Issue invites researchers to contribute original research articles and review articles on innovative approaches and solutions to achieve energy efficient buildings and energy efficient building heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems to assist in significantly reducing energy use and carbon footprint from the built environment. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Thermal and electrical energy storage
  • Intelligent buildings and building control optimization
  • Energy efficient building design
  • Building refurbishment and resilience
  • Renewable energy technologies
  • Building demand side management
  • Solar powered HVAC systems
  • Low energy technologies
  • Zero energy buildings
  • Off-site pre-fabrication and modular design

Dr. Zhenjun Ma
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. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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

  • Energy efficiency
  • Innovative solutions
  • Buildings
  • Sustainable technologies

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 3594 KiB  
Article
Mathematical Explanation and Fault Diagnosis of Low Delta-T Syndrome in Building Chilled Water Systems
by Chengchu Yan, Xiuxiu Yang and Yizhe Xu
Buildings 2018, 8(7), 84; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings8070084 - 21 Jun 2018
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 15168
Abstract
Low delta-T syndrome often occurs in building chilled water systems, which makes systems fail to operate as efficiently as originally anticipated. Extensive studies have been conducted on the subject of low delta-T syndrome with the aims of investigating the potential causes behind and [...] Read more.
Low delta-T syndrome often occurs in building chilled water systems, which makes systems fail to operate as efficiently as originally anticipated. Extensive studies have been conducted on the subject of low delta-T syndrome with the aims of investigating the potential causes behind and the ways to keep delta-T high. This paper addresses to explain the causes of degrading delta-T from a mathematic perspective and to analyze the impacts of important operational parameters on the delta-T quantitatively. A simplified global cooling coil model representing the relationship between the total cooling load and the total water flow rate of chilled water systems is developed, which can be used to predict the system delta-T under different load distribution and system operation conditions. It is proved mathematically that the load distribution characteristic is an important factor in influencing the system delta-T of a chilled water system. This finding explains why the system delta-T is always lower than the delta-T of individual coils, particularly under low partial load conditions. A system-level fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) method is proposed for identifying the possible causes of the low delta-T problem. A case study is conducted to validate the proposed global model and FDD method in a real building. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Approaches to Achieving Building Energy Efficiency)
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16 pages, 3770 KiB  
Article
Occupancy-Driven Energy-Efficient Buildings Using Audio Processing with Background Sound Cancellation
by Qian Huang
Buildings 2018, 8(6), 78; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings8060078 - 07 Jun 2018
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 4507
Abstract
Demand-driven HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) operation is essential in occupant-oriented smart buildings, where the levels of heating, cooling, and ventilation are intelligently regulated to avoid energy waste. Despite the great potential of building energy efficiency, one of the remaining technical challenges [...] Read more.
Demand-driven HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) operation is essential in occupant-oriented smart buildings, where the levels of heating, cooling, and ventilation are intelligently regulated to avoid energy waste. Despite the great potential of building energy efficiency, one of the remaining technical challenges is how to accurately estimate building occupancy information in real time. In this paper, this design challenge is addressed. An advanced audio-processing technique is adopted that minimizes the impacts of environmental sounds on the recorded voice sounds of humans. Adopted mathematical modeling and signal processing procedures are elaborated in this work. Experimental studies show that our proposed audio processing with background sound cancellation algorithm improves the estimation accuracy of room occupancy quantity by approximately 11–12%, which results in an averaged ventilation energy reduction of 3.54% compared to the case of not applying background sound cancellation. The proposed audio-processing technique is promising to achieve non-intrusive, cost-effective, robust, and accurate solutions for building occupancy estimation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Approaches to Achieving Building Energy Efficiency)
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8853 KiB  
Article
The Impact of Iwan as a Traditional Shading Device on the Building Energy Consumption
by Hamid Eskandari, Mahdi Saedvandi and Mohammadjavad Mahdavinejad
Buildings 2018, 8(1), 3; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings8010003 - 27 Dec 2017
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 8701
Abstract
In this paper, the effect of an exterior shading element (Iwan) on energy consumption in four different climatic regions and for different orientations, has been investigated numerically and experimentally. By applying different materials and techniques and creating various elements and spaces, architects make [...] Read more.
In this paper, the effect of an exterior shading element (Iwan) on energy consumption in four different climatic regions and for different orientations, has been investigated numerically and experimentally. By applying different materials and techniques and creating various elements and spaces, architects make hard climatic conditions more tolerable for residents. Iwan is one of the cooling elements which is used in different forms and dimensions in the Islamic architecture. In the present research, Iwan has been introduced as a climatic element in traditional and contemporary architectures and its role in reducing the energy consumption in buildings has been studied. In this respect, first, the thermal loads of a building without Iwan are computed using the EnergyPlus software. Then, four different forms of Iwan are added to the above-mentioned structure along the four principal orientations, moreover, the effect of Iwan on the reduction of thermal loads is analyzed for four different climates. Finally, the design parameters of Iwan, in terms of depth and form, which can help reduce the thermal loads in different climatic conditions are presented. The results show that the best position for using an Iwan is the south direction and the use of Iwan in temperate & humid, hot & humid, cold & mountainous and hot & dry climates could reduce the energy consumption in buildings by 32%, 26%, 14% and 29%, respectively. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Approaches to Achieving Building Energy Efficiency)
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