Appropriate energy efficient building envelope technologies for social housing in the Irish climate
Extensive dynamic thermal simulation parametric analyses have been undertaken of energy efficient fabric alterations to social housing in Northern Ireland culminating in priorities for deployment. Five ȁ8basecaseȁ9 simulation models were used to represent the predominant characteristics of the existing social housing stock. The majority of technologies studied provided annual space-heating energy savings of more than 10%. The variation of energy savings and economic performance across the basecases highlights the value of a dwelling specific approach to selecting energy efficient building envelope technology solutions for energy rehabilitation programmes. The paper further outlines a framework for prioritising appropriate energy efficient building envelope technological solutions for a large regional building stock, i.e. existing social housing stock in Northern Ireland, highlighting influential parameters. An energy efficient building envelope inter-technology ranking approach provides a method of comparison across the various different dwellings in the regional housing stock. Airtightness ranked consistently highest across the dwellings studied with some solar technologies performing better than more technologically mature solutions such as insulation.
The U.K. applicability study: an evaluation of thermal simulation programs for passive solar house design
Abstract The predictions of three detailed thermal simulation programs, ESP, HTB2 and SERIRES, are compared for a range of passive solar dwellings subjected to U.K. weather conditions. From the variations in predictions, the Simulation Resolution (SR) of the programs was estimated. SR values are given for predictions of annual heating energy demands and internal air temperatures. The influence of internal convective heat transfer and glazing algorithms on inter-program variability is shown. The wider utility of SR for interpreting the significance of program predictions is discussed.
Tests of composite beams with web holes
Tests of composite beams comprising a concrete slab supported on a steel deck and a steel wide-flange shape containing large web openings are described. Special attention is directed to the amount of shear connection between slab and steel section in the region of a web hole, and on the effect of construction loads acting on the steel section prior to composite action being effective.It is shown that limited shear connection at the hole will significantly affect the strength when loading produces a high shear-to-moment ratio, and a theory is presented which conservatively takes this into account. The effect of construction loads on unshored construction is shown to be small when these do not exceed 60% of the non-composite beam resistance at the hole.