Analysis of Solar Direct-Driven Organic Rankine Cycle Powered Vapor Compression Cooling System Combined with Electric Motor for Office Building Air-Conditioning

Solar energy powered organic Rankine cycle vapor compression cycle(ORC-VCC)is a good alternative to convert solar heat into a cooling effect.In this study,an ORC-VCC system driven by solar energy combined with electric motor is proposed to ensure smooth operation under the conditions that solar radiation is unstable and discontinuous,and an office building located in Guangzhou,China is selected as a case study.The results show that beam solar radiation and generation temperature have considerable effects on the system performance.There is an optimal generation temperature at which the system achieves optimum performance.Also,as a key indicator,the cooling power per square meter collector should be considered in the hybrid solar cooling system in design process.Compared to the vapor compression cooling system,the hybrid cooling system can save almost 68.23%of electricity consumption.

Quantification of how mechanical ventilation influences the airborne infection risk of COVID-19 and HVAC energy consumption in office buildings

This paper presents an EnergyPlus-based parametric analysis to investigate the infection risk of Coronavirus Disease 2019(COVID-19)under different mechanical ventilation scenarios for a typical medium-sized office building in various climate zones.A Wells-Riley(WR)based Gammaitoni-Nucci(GN)model was employed to quantitatively calculate the airborne infection risk.The selected parameters for the parametric analysis include the climate zone,outdoor air fraction,fraction of infectors,quanta generation rate,and exposure time.The loss and deposition of particles are not considered.The results suggest that the COVID-19 infection risk varies significantly with climate and season under different outdoor air fraction scenarios since the building heating and cooling load fundamentally impacts the supply airflow rate and thus directly influences the amount of mechanical ventilation,which determines the dilution ratio of contaminants.This risk assessment identified the climate zones that benefit the most and the least from increasing the outdoor air fraction.The climate zones such as 1A(Honolulu,HI),2B(Tucson,AZ),3A(Atlanta,GA),and 7(International Falls,MN)are the most energy-efficient locations when it comes to increasing the outdoor air fraction to reduce the COVID-19 infection risk.In contrast,the climate zones such as 6A(Rochester,MN)and 6B(Great Falls,MT)are the least energy-efficient ones.This paper facilitates understanding a widely recommended COVID-19 risk mitigation strategy(i.e.,increase the outdoor airflow rate)from the perspective of energy consumption.

An improved window opening behavior model involving the division of the dummy variable’s interval level:Case study of an office building in Xi’an during summer

Window opening behavior significantly impacts indoor air quality,thermal comfort,and energy consumption.A field measurement was carried out in three typical rooms(a standard office,a meeting room and a smoking office)within an office building.The window state and the physical environment were continuously recorded during the measured periods.Three typical window opening behaviors were found in the measured samples,namely,active,moderate,and passive.The common logistic regression coefficient indicated that solar radiation exhibited the greatest effect on window opening behavior in the smoking office and standard office.Typically,window opening behavior in the meeting room was the most strongly correlated with time of the day,mainly because of the meeting schedule for occupants in the meeting room.This study discussed the dividing principles involved in setting the dummy variable interval level(discretizing continuous variables and dividing them into different intervals),and proposed a method to determine the optimal interval level of each variable.The improved model led to the increase in the prediction accuracy rate of the window being opened by 2.0%and 3.3%according to the comparison with the original model based on dummy variables and the common model based on continuous variables,respectively.This study can provide a reference value for simulating energy consumption in office buildings in the future.

Gemdale Plaza——A Premium Grade-A Office Building on Chang’an Avenue

With trading,financing and media industry forming the new industry pattern of the central business district (CBD)

Sunny Days Ahead for Office Building Market?

Although foreign investments are restricted, Chinese office building developers are still optimistic about market

Building International Gateway Offices with ZXJ10

1 GeneralEconomic globalization is resulting inrapid development of the telecommuni-cation industry. It is now necessary formany contries to build new internationalgateway offices or expand their existing sys-tems in order to become interconnected

Stochastic and Distributed Optimal Energy Management of Active Distribution Networks Within Integrated Office Buildings

This paper proposes a stochastic and distributed optimal energy management approach for active distribution networks(ADNs)within office buildings.The proposed approach aims at scheduling office buildings fitted with heating ventilation and air conditioning(HVAC)systems,and electric vehicle(EV)charging piles,to participate in the ADN optimization.First,an energy management approach for the ADN with aggregated office buildings is proposed.And the ADN optimization model is formulated considering the detailed building thermal dynamics and the mobile behaviors of workers.Then,to consider un-certainties of photovoltaic(PV)power,scenario-based stochastic programming is integrated into the ADN optimization model.To further realize the stochastic energy management of the ADN within office buildings in a distributed manner,the alternating direction method of multipliers(ADMM)is used to solve the ADN optimization model.The original ADN optimization problem is divided into the network-side and the building-side sub-problems to effectively protect the privacy of the ADN and the office buildings.Finally,the ADN optimization model incorporating office buildings is validated in the winter by numerical studies.In addition,the impacts of comfort temperature range and expected state of charge(SOC)at departure are analyzed.Index Terms—ADN,EV,HVAC system,Office building,Stochastic and distributed energy management.

Cost Estimate and Input Energy of Floor Systems in Low Seismic Regions

Reinforced concrete(RC)as a material is most commonly used for buildings construction.Several floor systems are available following the structural and architectural requirements.The current research study provides cost and input energy comparisons of RC office buildings of different floor systems.Conventional solid,ribbed,flat plate and flat slab systems are considered in the study.Building models in three-dimensional using extended threedimensional analysis of building systems(ETABS)and in two-dimensional using slab analysis by the finite element(SAFE)are developed for analysis purposes.Analysis and design using both software packages and manual calculations are employed to obtain the optimum sections and reinforcements to fit cities of low seismic intensities for all the considered building systems.Two ground motion records of low peak ground acceleration(PGA)levels are used to excite the models to measure the input energies.Uniformat cost estimating system is adopted to categorize building components according to 12 divisions.Also,Microsoft(MS)Project is utilized to identify the construction cost and duration of each building system.The study shows that floor system significantly causes changes in the input energy to structures.In addition,the slight increase in the PGA increases the amount of input energy particularly flat plate system.Estimated cost of the flat plate system that the flat slab system is of higher value as compared to ribbed and conventional slab systems.The use of drop panels increases this value as well.Moreover,the estimated cost of the ribbed slab system exceeds that of conventional system.

遮阳条件下的办公建筑日光眩光模拟研究

在办公建筑的使用中,天然采光可以大大降低建筑内部对人工光源的需求,对我国推进的碳达峰及碳中和工作、建筑节能等方面的实操层面具有重要意义。同时,适宜的天然采光能为建筑带来舒适的工作环境,对室内人眼的长时间聚焦有积极作用。但直接的天然采光在特定环境下极易产生眩光,强烈的光强及分布不均给人眼工作带来不适,严重影响建筑使用的光舒适度。

On the applicability of various levels of detail for occupant behavior representation and modeling in building performance simulation

Occupant behavior(OB)is one of the significant sources of uncertainty in building performance simulation.While OB modeling has received increased attention in the past decade,research on the degree of granularity or level of detail(LoD)required for representing occupants is still in the nascent stages.This paper analyzes the modeling and applicability of three LoDs to represent occupants in building performance assessment.A medium-sized prototype office building located in Chicago,Illinois is used as the simulation case study.Ten occupant-centric attributes are adopted to develop the LoDs for OB representation.We first demonstrate the different modeling approaches required for simulating the three fidelity levels.Later,we illustrate the suitability of the developed LoDs in supporting six building performance use cases across different lifecycle stages.This study intends to provide guidance for the building simulation community on appropriate OB representation to support various use cases.

Operation strategy and energy-saving of the solar lighting/heating system through spectral splitting

The performance of a solar lighting and heating system(SLHS)based on the spectral splitting effect of nanofluids is presented in this paper.SLHS through nanofluids would split the sunlight spectrum into different wavelength,and then introduce the visible light into the offices for lighting and absorb infrared energy to generate hot water.The Energy Plus software was used to analyze the energy consumption of typical office building located in the city of Harbin in China coupled with SLHS.Based on the simulation results two lighting zones were identified in the offices and the optimal lighting control strategy was developed for a full year.The performance models of SLHS with different light-receiving areas of 10 m^(2)and 40 m^(2)were simulated and validated using the existing experimental data.The overall energy-saving of the offices over a full year were analyzed using the validated model.Results demonstrated that for SLHS with the area of 40 m^(2),the rate of the energy saving in the offices due to lighting and hot water systems were 58.9%,and 19.3%,respectively.The system also had the additional benefit of reducing the cooling load of the air conditioning system during summer period together with improving the quality of the indoor environment resulting in better health and productivity of the occupants.

Daylight and thermal performance of a switchable ethylene tetra-fluoro-ethylene cushion with dynamic control in different climates

Switchable multi-layer ethylene tetra-fluoro-ethylene(ETFE)cushion controls the natural light and heat flux passing through the cushion with varying outdoor conditions by dynamically modifying its properties.In this paper,the switchable ETFE cushions with ink printing of different optical and thermal properties were adopted as the window in a typical office model,and the indoor daylight and energy consumption were simulated by using Grasshopper software.Experimental model was built to validate the numerical model.Five locations representing five climate zones in China were selected to analyze the feasibility of the switchable ETFE cushion in different climates.The hourly indoor daylight and heat gain in a single day revealed the effects of the dynamic mechanism of ETFE cushion in improving indoor natural light and thermal environment.In addition,the annual daylight performance at the working area(1.5 m from the window)was simulated.ETFE cushion with printing of the lowest transmittance(ETFE1)was the optimal option for most cities and window-to-wall ratios,with the percentage of annual useful daylight hours up to 78.6%,except for the cases where the window-to-wall ratio(WWR)was 0.35 in Harbin,Beijing,and Hefei.The distribution of useful daylight hours revealed that ETFE cushions with low,medium,and high printing transmittance were suitable for offices where people work in the front,medium,and back region of the room,respectively.Energy consumption calculation revealed that ETFE1 showed advantages over other windows in most cities except for cities highly dominated by heating.ETFE1 delivered up to 33%of energy saving over a year in Kunming compared with the conventional double glazing but was not superior in cities with high heating and low cooling demands,such as Harbin.

Analysis of the CPMV index for evaluating indoor thermal comfort in southern China in summer,a case study in Nanjing

With the rapid development of building technology,transparent envelope is more and more widely used,which makes the indoor environment of buildings more and more affected by solar radiation.However,the effects of solar radiation are not included in the PMV model.The Corrected Predicted Mean Vote(CPMV)model considering solar radiation was previously proposed and verified in northern China.In order to expand the applicability of the CPMV model to the hot summer and cold winter(HSCW)zone of southern China,a field study was conducted in an office building in Nanjing.A total of 686 valid questionnaires were recovered during the surveys in two summers in 2019 and 2020.The results show that the evaluation value of CPMV is highly consistent with the actual thermal sensation vote(TSV)when the corrected operative temperature is below 30℃.However,when the corrected operative temperature is above 30℃,the CPMV value is higher than TSV,because it underestimates the tolerance of human body to the hot environment in Nanjing.The thermal neutral temperature is 26.12℃(CPMV)and 26.28℃(TSV)respectively,which is higher than that in winter and summer in northern China.This study fills the blank in the application of CPMV model in southern China.The CPMV model can accurately evaluate the thermal comfort of indoor environment affected by solar radiation,which is worthy of promotion and application to other types of buildings and areas.