Investigating the Energy-Efficient Structures Using Building Energy Performance Simulations: A Case Study

Abstract

The use of energy efficient structures in the local construction industry assists in promoting green building concepts, leading to economical and eco-friendly solutions for self-sustained structures. The main aim of this study was to examine and compare the energy performance of various local buildings. Detailed 3D building models (house, office, and warehouse buildings) were constructed and investigated for their cost and energy savings using building energy simulation tools (green building studio and insight). Moreover, the effects of various building materials for walls, window panels, and roof construction were explored, and a life-cycle cost analysis was performed. It was observed that the effect of the window-to-wall ratio was less severe in term of energy use in office buildings compared to normal houses due to the larger amount of space available for air circulation. Furthermore, the most efficient location for windows was found to be at the middle of the wall in comparison with the top and bottom positions. The effect of the orientation mainly depended on the symmetry of the building. More symmetric buildings, i.e., tested warehouse buildings (rectangular structure), showed an energy use difference of around 7 MJ/m2/year for a 360° orientation change. Tested house buildings exhibited an energy use difference of up to 25 MJ/m2/year. Three-pane glass windows also showed major improvements, and the total energy consumption for houses was reduced to 14%. Furthermore, wood walls showed comparable energy performance with brick walls without the use of insulation. According to US-LEED guidelines, the tested house, office, and warehouse buildings achieved 79, 89, and 88 points, respectively. The cost recovery period for house, office, and warehouse buildings was estimated to 54, 13, and 14 years, respectively, including running and maintenance costs. It can be argued that the Insight and Green Building Studio packages can assist construction stakeholders to determine the energy efficiency of the modeled building as well as to help in the selection of materials for optimized and improved design.

Quality management system in higher education institutions and its impact on students' employability with the mediating effect of industry–academia collaboration

“…According to Desai and Berger (2016), the majority of employers look for reliable, confident, innovative and mature business graduates. Many employers believe that technological changes, such as the Internet and availability of information (Abbas et al , 2014), have eliminated the geographical boundaries of businesses and resulted in global competition (Vermeulen et al , 2018; Shahzad et al , 2020). Hence, the need for critical and reflective thinking, problem-solving abilities, self-management, learning and related competencies is continually increasing across all disciplines (Makkonen, 2017).…”

“…Mok and Jiang (2017) said that one of the key reasons for this issue is the massification of HEIs, which is causing damage to educational institutions' quality. Moreover, the lack of effective supervision, steady reduction in state grants for research and development activities and lack of coordination between industry and academia have resulted in a change in the focus of HEIs (Abbas et al , 2014). The collaboration between industry and academia has often resulted in new research topics, which are beneficial for industry, academia, society and government (see Figure 1).…”

Using Lean-and-Green Supersaturated Poly-Factorial Mini Datasets to Profile Energy Consumption Performance for an Apartment Unit

“…To be pragmatic, the retrofitting optimization problem's complexity should be simplified, as it is known to implicate contributions of uncertainty from the structural details of the examined apartment unit, its electromechanical systems configuration, the unit's actual demands on annual local weather conditions, and indigenous occupant behavior tendencies [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. A sophisticated multicriteria software tool is often necessitated in order to simulate and analyze improvement opportunities for various types of energy leaks, such as to prioritize the retrofitting tasks while paying heed to green considerations [34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43]. Of course, it is anticipated that the energy professional in charge of the retrofitting project should be skillful and knowledgeable in several areas of expertise, including designing and computing, to handle empirical modelling and complicated forecasts.…”