The Impact of External Shading Design on the Building Energy Consumption
In this paper, the effect of an exterior shading element (Iwan) on energy consumption in four different climatic regions, and for different geographical directions, 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 ben studied. In this respect, first, the thermal loads of a building without Iwan are computed by means of EnergyPlus software. Then, four different forms of Iwan are added to the abovementioned structure along the four principal geographical directions, and 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, that 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.
Multi-Objective Optimization of a Shading System to Reduce Heating and Cooling Energy Needs of a House in Benguerir, Morocco
This work presents a methodology combining multiobjective optimization with MOBO and building energy simulation with TRNSYS, to optimize shading coefficients to reduce the heating and cooling energy needs of an existing building in Benguerir-Morocco. The optimization was performed using the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm of (NSGA-II). Optimal values for the shading coefficients of windows located on different orientations were determined. The optimal heating/cooling demand was found to be about 130 kWh/m2.year instead of 207 kWh/m2.year of the energy needs of the building.
Fully Integrated Bidirectional CMOS-MEMS Flow Sensor With Low Power Pulse Operation
Leveraging More-than-Moore technology, we demonstrate an integrated CMOS MEMS flow sensor via a very compact system on chip (SoC) that can sense the bidirectional N2 gas flow. Our SoC features a very low-noise instrumentation amplifier that is implemented on a CMOS wafer and serves as a readout integrated circuit for a thermoresistive micro-calorimetric flow sensor which is fabricated on a MEMS wafer. A compact heterogeneous integration is achieved by combining the two wafers via the proprietary InvenSense AlN process. The measured sensitivity of our CMOS MEMS flow sensor is 98 mV/sccm which is three times better than the state-of-the-art counterpart. The flow range measured by our SoC is from −26 to 26 m/s (from −50 to 50 sccm). Moreover, the pulsed heater operation makes this proposed SoC flow sensor a very low power (<9 mW) and, thus, a promising candidate for the Internet-of-Things applications in smart home/green buildings.