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Energies
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Building Design, Solar Energy and Thermal Comfort
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Building Design, Solar Energy and Thermal Comfort

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "G: Energy and Buildings".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2023) | Viewed by 14260

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Yu Liu

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Guest Editor
School of Mechanics, Civil Engineering and Architecture, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710060, China
Interests: green building design; sustainable building and environmental assessment; solar building
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Bin Chen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Civil Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
Interests: smart building; from the point of view of Chinese culture: on the approach of living and well-being; adaptive sensory environments; experimental technology for adaptive sensory environments based on artificial intelligence and big data; sustainable buildings and indoor environments; energy resources and indoor environments in rural houses
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Wuxing Zheng

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Mechanics, Civil Engineering and Architecture, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710060, China
Interests: building thermal environment; human thermal comfort and building energy-efficiency
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Teng Shao

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Associate Professor, School of Mechanics, Civil Engineering and Architecture, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710129, China
Interests: green building design; building performance optimization; building physical environment; artificial intelligence application in building design
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

A variety of issues and perspectives should be taken into consideration during the building design process; among these, energy utilization and thermal comfort have attracted significant attention. Buildings account for around 40% of the total global energy consumption, a large proportion of this is used in achieving and maintaining the desired healthy and comfortable built environment. In recent decades, the shortage of traditional fossil fuel energy and the concerns surrounding CO2 emissions have led to more emphasis on the generalized solar energy utilization in the design of buildings in urban/rural environment.

This Special Issue aims to present and disseminate the most recent advances related to the theory, investigation, simulation, practice and assessment of buildings and urban/rural environmental design in relation to the energy (especially the generalized solar energy) utilization and thermal comfort issues.

Topics of interest for publication include—but are not limited to—the following:

  • Solar energy in building design;
  • Solar energy in community design;
  • Solar energy in landscape design;
  • Solar energy in urban/rural environment;
  • Building environmental design;
  • Building environmental assessment;
  • Urban/rural environmental design;
  • Urban/rural environmental assessment;
  • Thermal comfort design;
  • Thermal comfort assessment;
  • Thermal comfort & solar energy utilization;
  • Energy-saving design of built environment;
  • Renewable energy utilization in the built environment.

Prof. Dr. Yu Liu
Prof. Dr. Bin Chen
Dr. Wuxing Zheng
Dr. Teng Shao
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 15663 KiB  
Article
The Coupling Relationship between Building Morphology and Outdoor Wind Environment in the High-Rise Dormitory Area in China
by Liping Fan, Siwen Ren, Yuan Ma and Qibo Liu
Energies 2023, 16(9), 3655; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16093655 - 24 Apr 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1372
Abstract
A good outdoor wind environment can guarantee the safety and comfort of student activities. It is also conducive to building energy-saving and low-carbon goals. In this study, the high-rise dormitory area of a university was selected as a research object in the cold [...] Read more.
A good outdoor wind environment can guarantee the safety and comfort of student activities. It is also conducive to building energy-saving and low-carbon goals. In this study, the high-rise dormitory area of a university was selected as a research object in the cold region. The study used a combination of numerical simulation and orthogonal tests to analyze the weighting of the influencing factors of the wind environment and to recommend the optimal design scheme. The results indicated that the building layout, building length, width, and height all had different degrees of influence on the outdoor wind environment of the dormitory area. For the slab-type high-rise dormitory, the influence weight of the layout was the strongest, followed by the building height, the width, and, finally, the length. The optimal scheme is a staggered layout with a building length of 50 m, width of 18 m, and height of 85.2 m. The wind environment in this situation performed well in winter and summer. For the tower-type high-rise dormitory, the influence weight of the building height was the greatest, followed by the width, the length, and then the layout. The optimal scheme is a staggered layout with a building length of 26 m, width of 24 m, and height of 85.2 m. The wind environment in this situation performed well. Overall, the study scrutinized the coupling relationship between building morphology and wind environment from the meso-level perspective. At the micro level, we constructed the design method for the dormitory building morphology by considering the wind environment performance as the target. It can assist designers in making decisions during the planning and design phases of project construction to facilitate the positive design of buildings. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Building Design, Solar Energy and Thermal Comfort)
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18 pages, 4121 KiB  
Article
Thermal Environment and Animal Comfort of Aviary Prototypes with Photovoltaic Solar Panel on the Roof
by Charles Paranhos Oliveira, Fernanda Campos de Sousa, Gabriel Machado Dallago, Jocássia Reis Silva, Paulo Henrique Reis Furtado Campos, Maria Clara de Carvalho Guimarães and Fernando da Costa Baêta
Energies 2023, 16(5), 2504; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16052504 - 6 Mar 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2527
Abstract
The areas on the roofs of animal production facilities present great potential for generating solar energy. However, the impact that the addition of new material on the roof can generate on the installation’s thermal environment is still poorly studied. Thus, this study aims [...] Read more.
The areas on the roofs of animal production facilities present great potential for generating solar energy. However, the impact that the addition of new material on the roof can generate on the installation’s thermal environment is still poorly studied. Thus, this study aims to investigate the effect of the application of photovoltaic panels in the roofs of prototypes, in reduced-scale aviaries, on the thermal environment, and on the animal comfort condition inside the prototypes. For this, six prototypes of aviaries on a reduced 1:5 scale are used. They are equipped with three types of tiles (ceramic, fiber-cement, and metal), with and without a photovoltaic panel. The effect of applying the photovoltaic panel is verified by evaluating the air temperature, the surface temperature of the roofs, the temperature and humidity index (THI), the black globe humidity index (BGHI), and the radiation heat load (RHL). The results show that applying the photovoltaic panel on the roof, regardless of the type of tile, is efficient in reducing the air temperature by about 0.4 °C, the BGHI by about 0.7, and the RHL about 4 W/m2. As for THI, there is only a 4.8 reduction in fiber-cement roofs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Building Design, Solar Energy and Thermal Comfort)
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20 pages, 10679 KiB  
Article
A Parametric Design Method for the Lighting Environment of a Library Building Based on Building Performance Evaluation
by Qibo Liu, Xiao Han, Yuheng Yan and Juan Ren
Energies 2023, 16(2), 832; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16020832 - 11 Jan 2023
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3245
Abstract
The lighting conditions of a library directly affect the users’ spatial experience, with glass curtain walls being widely used in the design of library skins. Although glass curtain walls have been extensively adopted, they increase indoor sun exposure and glare. Considering sunlight duration [...] Read more.
The lighting conditions of a library directly affect the users’ spatial experience, with glass curtain walls being widely used in the design of library skins. Although glass curtain walls have been extensively adopted, they increase indoor sun exposure and glare. Considering sunlight duration and radiation as the design basis, this study employs the Rhino and Grasshopper parametric platforms to parametrically design a library with a dynamic shading skin. Specifically, our design utilizes modular shading components that can change depending on the simulated sunlight data at different times. Additionally, a new optimal design strategy has been developed to enhance the environmental lighting performance of the library. The simulation results highlight that the indoor environmental lighting performance, under dynamic epidermal shading and based on sunlight duration data, is better for east–west, north–south, and east–west orientations on the summer solstice and the winter solstice. Meanwhile, the indoor environmental lighting performance, under dynamic epidermal shading based on daylight radiation data, is better for north–south orientation on the winter solstice. Overall, this study uses parameterization to integrate building simulation and architectural design to improve a building’s lighting performance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Building Design, Solar Energy and Thermal Comfort)
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28 pages, 8146 KiB  
Article
Energy Performance Assessment of the Container Housing in Subtropical Region of China upon Future Climate Scenarios
by Hua Suo, Xinxin Guan, Shanglin Wu and Zhengyu Fan
Energies 2023, 16(1), 503; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16010503 - 2 Jan 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2312
Abstract
Being continuously abandoned in huge amounts year-round by freight industry, shipping containers meet increasing regenerative utility in forms of temporary buildings, small public facilities, etc., especially in fast-developing countries with large populations and high living intensities like China. Although recycled containers have been [...] Read more.
Being continuously abandoned in huge amounts year-round by freight industry, shipping containers meet increasing regenerative utility in forms of temporary buildings, small public facilities, etc., especially in fast-developing countries with large populations and high living intensities like China. Although recycled containers have been nicely entitled with green building visions, their characterized inferior thermal properties (low inertia, poor insulation, etc.) when compared to conventional building forms and materials will greatly hinder their energy-saving potential, especially under the serious future extreme climate expectations. It therefore becomes particularly necessary to uncover the actual energy and thermophysical behaviors of the container building typology, upon extreme future climate scenarios targeting zero carbon forms for small-scale and temporary buildings in the upcoming future. In reference to existing data, this study made reasonable predictions of future extreme climate conditions (2050 and 2080), employing the Morphing method, and examined the cooling energy performances of the typical container housing in a subtropical climate through dynamic simulations. The energy-saving effectiveness of key design variables including insulation types, thicknesses, window opening areas and air infiltration rates has been validated and quantitatively revealed for such a building typology among the tested hot summer and warm winter region. Results imply that the additional energy burden brought by future extreme weather conditions cannot be ignored. The heat gains from envelopes and hot air infiltration are both key design factors of cooling energy increments for such building types upon future extreme climates. Compared with expanded pearl- and vermiculite-type insulation materials, thinner (70~90 mm) plastics and mineral wool-type ones have better energy-saving performance and therefore are worth consideration. High air infiltration rates and window openings in eastern or western orientations shall be carefully selected. The research outcomes can provide key references for design decisions made for the energy-efficient and low-carbon design of the container building typology among subtropical zones, or similar climate regions in response to future climate conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Building Design, Solar Energy and Thermal Comfort)
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18 pages, 1698 KiB  
Article
Impact on Thermal Energy Needs Caused by the Use of Different Solar Irradiance Decomposition and Transposition Models: Application of EN ISO 52016-1 and EN ISO 52010-1 Standards for Five European Cities
by Serena Summa, Giada Remia, Ambra Sebastianelli, Gianluca Coccia and Costanzo Di Perna
Energies 2022, 15(23), 8904; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15238904 - 25 Nov 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1421
Abstract
To solve the series of heat balances that EN ISO 52016-1 uses to simulate the dynamic hourly energy requirements of a building, detailed climatic data are required as input. Differently from air temperatures, relative humidity and wind speed, which are easily measurable and [...] Read more.
To solve the series of heat balances that EN ISO 52016-1 uses to simulate the dynamic hourly energy requirements of a building, detailed climatic data are required as input. Differently from air temperatures, relative humidity and wind speed, which are easily measurable and available in databases, the direct and diffuse solar irradiances incident on the different inclined and oriented surfaces, which are fundamental for the evaluation of solar gains, must be estimated using one of the many regression models available in the literature. Therefore, in this work, the energy needs of buildings were evaluated with the simplified hourly dynamic method of EN ISO 52016-1 by varying the solar irradiance sets on inclined and oriented surfaces obtained from EN ISO 52010-1 and three other pairs of solar irradiance separation and transposition models. Five European locations and two different window solar transmission coefficients (ggl) were analysed. The results showed that on average, for the heating period and for both ggl, the use of the different methods causes an average error on the calculation of the annual demand of less or slightly more than 5%; while for the cooling period, the average error on the calculation of the annual demand is 16.4% for the case study with ggl = 0.28 and 25.1% for the case study with ggl = 0.63. On the other hand, analysing the root-mean-square-error of the hourly data, using the model contained in TRNSYS as a benchmark, for most of the cases, when varying window orientations, cities and ggl, the model that diverges furthest from the others is that contained in EN ISO 52010-1. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Building Design, Solar Energy and Thermal Comfort)
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14 pages, 3912 KiB  
Article
Experimental Study on the Effect of Temperature Up-Step on Human Thermal Perception and Skin Temperature between Activity Intensities at Low Ambient Temperatures
by Peng Luo, Yongxin Liu and Hao Wang
Energies 2022, 15(12), 4411; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15124411 - 16 Jun 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2089
Abstract
In the north of China, during winter, a large number of activities (such as leisure, work, sightseeing and sports) are engaged in. This paper mainly focuses on human thermal perceptions of outdoor activities in a winter climate, especially the change in thermal perceptions [...] Read more.
In the north of China, during winter, a large number of activities (such as leisure, work, sightseeing and sports) are engaged in. This paper mainly focuses on human thermal perceptions of outdoor activities in a winter climate, especially the change in thermal perceptions when humans enter a temporary rest space with a shelter effect. A climate chamber was applied in our experiments, and temperature up-steps of 4, 8 and 12 °C were set, respectively. Twenty four college students were invited to engage in activities of different intensities, such as standing, walking (slowly) and biking. Through questionnaire survey and field measurement, the subjects’ thermal sensation, thermal comfort and skin temperature were obtained. Hypothesis testing and non-linear regression methods were introduced to analyze experiment data. Major results were as follows. After temperature up-step changes, thermal sensation and skin temperature reach steady state within 30 min. However, the change in skin temperature caused by a short-term thermal experience does not disappear completely within 40 min. In addition to the influence of ambient temperature changes, activity intensity also influenced the variation in thermal sensation (subjective) and skin temperature (objective). These study results provide a scientific reference for future research and design of a temporary rest space in low ambient temperatures. Experimental studies including broader age groups and outdoor field tests are valuable for future research. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Building Design, Solar Energy and Thermal Comfort)
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