Application of clustering technique for definition of generic objects in a material database

Abstract

In this article, generic objects are introduced into material databases of building simulation tools. A generic object has the common characteristics of one type of specific object and can represent specific ones in the simulation. The application of generic objects only requires some general design information; thus, it is convenient for the simulation users who do not have a detailed knowledge of building specification in the early design stage. First, the method to uncover the underlying cluster structure in the dataset is illustrated. Clustering of the objects depends on the adopted clustering variables and clustering procedure. Therefore, different clustering techniques are applied to agglomerate specific materials into different clusters, and the clustering solutions are compared for validation. Generic synthesis is then conducted to derive the generic material from each identified cluster. The approach on how to apply generic materials to fill in missing values of the incomplete material data is also described.

Climate Resilience of Internally-Insulated Historic Masonry Assemblies: Comparison of Moisture Risk under Current and Future Climate Scenarios

“…Insulation thicknesses were selected to achieve identical U-values across The wall assemblies were selected to represent existing conditions of a solid brick wall (assuming no other wall components) and three popular internal solid wall insulation materials (Figure 2). Using DELPHIN's material database, a clustering technique was used to group bricks by their properties [31]. From Cluster 2 (historical bricks of clay and loam), brick ZG was selected for its median values as well as matching the BRE solid wall survey's median values [32].…”

Sensitivity analysis of the hygrothermal behaviour of homogeneous masonry constructions: Interior insulation, rainwater infiltration and hydrophobic treatment

“…Therefore the fololowing method was adopted. Seventeen historic bricks from the IBK database which are fully caracterized are clusterder into four material clusters in accordance to the clustering process presented by Zhao et al (2015) with Wards cluster method. Averaging of the MRC as LCC curves has to be done carefully to ensure that during the averaging no data is lost in the crucial steep zones of the curves (Figure 2).…”

Sensitivity of the hygrothermal behaviour of homogeneous masonry constructions: from Sobol indices to decision trees

“…A correlation matrix, derived by Zhao J. (Table 2 in [7]), is used as a sampling condition to avoid unphysical combinations. 3 Damage criteria…”

“…17 historic bricks from the IBK database which are fully caracterized are clusterder into four material clusters in accordance to the clustering process presented by Zhao J. [7]. Ward's method is used which means that a fusion of clusters is searched where the sum of the squared distances between the cluster's centroid is as little as possible.…”