Measurement of diffusion coefficients of VOCs for building materials: review and development of a calculation procedure

The measurement and prediction of building material emission rates have been the subject of intensive research over the past decade, resulting in the development of advanced sensory and chemical analysis measurement techniques as well as the development of analytical and numerical models. One of the important input parameters for these models is the diffusion coefficient. Several experimental techniques have been applied to estimate the diffusion coefficient. An extensive literature review of the techniques used to measure this coefficient was carried out, for building materials exposed to volatile organic compounds (VOC). This paper reviews these techniques; it also analyses the results and discusses the possible causes of difference in the reported data. It was noted that the discrepancy between the different results was mainly because of the assumptions made in and the techniques used to analyze the data. For a given technique, the results show that there can be a difference of up to 700% in the reported data. Moreover, the paper proposes what is referred to as the mass exchanger method, to calculate diffusion coefficients considering both diffusion and convection. The results obtained by this mass exchanger method were compared with those obtained by the existing method considering only diffusion. It was demonstrated that, for porous materials, the convection resistance could not be ignored when compared with the diffusion resistance.     

CFD Analysis of Turbulent Natural Ventilation in Double-Skin Fa?ade: Thermal Mass and Energy Efficiency

Double-skin fa?ade provides many opportunities for energy conservation in buildings. This work summarizes the results of a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis, which was carried out to investigate the effect of blind and thermal mass concrete on the thermal performance of a double-skin fa?ade. Navier-Stokes equations, turbulent k-ε model, and discrete ordinates radiation model have been used to simulate the airflow and to study the airflow pattern. It was shown that the airflow patterns for natural ventilation with a blind and thermal mass concrete were very complex with multiple vortex structures. On the other hand, the heat flux and the airflow velocity at the inlet have a significant impact on the natural ventilation airflow rate. The Rayleigh number for turbulent flow was in the range of 107 ≤ Ra ≤ 108 using a blind. However, the Rayleigh number was less than 107 using thermal mass concrete. On the other hand, thermal mass increases the energy performance of natural ventilation. A good agreement was performed by comparing the experimental data and the simulation results.     

Numerical simulation of the performance of an air heating solar collector

The effects of the thermal and hydrodynamics entry length for both laminar and turbulent flow regimes within an air-heating solar collector have been studied using a numerical procedure. Two internal arrangements were considered: (1) air passing on both sides of the absorber (parallel flow), and (2) use of finned and other augmented surfaces.

Results of the analysis showed that the temperatures of the cover plates for the parallel flow collector were lower than if the air had passed on only one side of the absorber plate (single flow). Consequently, the heat losses were reduced and the efficiency of the parallel flow collector was increased. Also the pumping power per unit energy gained by the collector for parallel flow mode was less than that for the single flow mode. By using a finned surface, the temperatures of the cover plates were lower than for single and parallel flow and consequently the heat losses were reduced and the efficiency of the finned surface collector was increased. But in this case, the pumping power per unit energy gained by the collector and operating costs also increased.     

Approaches to study Urban Heat Island – Abilities and limitations

Urban Heat Island (UHI) has significant impacts on the buildings energy consumption and outdoor air quality (OAQ). Various approaches, including observation and simulation techniques, have been proposed to understand the causes of UHI formation and to find the corresponding mitigation strategies. However, the causes of UHI are not the same in different climates or city features. Thus, general conclusion cannot be made based on limited monitoring data.     

Modeling and physical interpretation of photocatalytic oxidation efficiency in indoor air applications

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are the major pollutants in indoor air, which significantly impact indoor air quality (IAQ). As a promising technique to remove VOCs, photocatalytic oxidation (PCO) takes the advantages of oxidation of a large range of VOCs with low energy consumption. In this study, the mass transports and reaction mechanism involved in the PCO process have been studied. In addition, the kinetic models of PCO on the different conditions of elementary reactions have been critically reviewed. Moreover, the factors that may affect the efficiency of PCO were interpreted based on the established fundamental mechanism of PCO. Some recommendations were made for future work to improve the efficiency of PCO system for building applications.     

Passive cooling in hot,arid regions in developing countries by employing domed roofs and reducing the temperature of internal surfaces

Natural ventilation due to wind effects through buildings employing domed roofs was estimated by a flow network analysis. The dome was assumed to have an opening at its crown. When compared with flat roofs, the domed roofs always increase the air flow rate through the building. The increase in natural ventilation becomes significant in buildings with doors and windows all in one wall, or whenever the wind effects on the building envelope do not produce large pressure differences at the openings.The large air flow rate in the buildings with domed roofs may be utilized to store night air coolness in the structure more effectively and keep the mean radiant temperature of the interior surfaces low for thermal comfort in summer. The lowest internal surface temperatures can be obtained when the surfaces are kept moist and evaporatively cooled.Through a one-dimensional energy analysis the inside surface temperature of a horizontal slab was estimated for various slab materials and thicknesses and external and internal conditions. The inside surface temperature was compared with the case of employing a roof pond. It was found that lower temperatures can be obtained by evaporatively-cooled moist internal surfaces than that which can be obtained by unshaded roof ponds: For a building whose internal surfaces (walls and ceiling) are kept moist a large ventilation rate is needed to prevent water vapor build-up in the space. A domed roof with a hole in its crown can produce the necessary ventilation for such a building.     

Tabu search based algorithms for bandwidth-delay-constrained least-cost multicast routing

The advent of various real-time multimedia applications in high-speed networks creates a need for quality of service (QoS) based multicast routing. The Steiner tree problem, is a well-known NP-complete problem, provides the mathematical structure behind multicast communications. Two important QoS constraints are the bandwidth constraint and the end-to-end delay constraint. In this paper, we propose various algorithms to solve the bandwidth-delay-constrained least-cost multicast routing problem based on Tabu Search (TS), addressing issues of the selected initial solution and move type as two major building blocks in short-term memory version of Tabu Search and longer-term memory with associated intensification and diversification strategies as advanced Tabu Search techniques. We evaluate the performance and efficiency of the proposed TS-based algorithms in comparison with other existing TS-based algorithms and heuristics on a variety of random generated networks with regard to total tree cost. Finally we identify the most efficient algorithm uncovered by our testing.     

Application of transfer functions to model water injection in hydrocarbon reservoir

Water flooding is one of the most economical methods to increase oil recovery. In order to improve the ultimate oil recovery during waterflooding, it is essential to provide an accurate forecast of reservoir performance. Hence, various methods have been utilized to simulate reservoirs. Although grid-based simulation is the most common and accurate method, time-consuming computation and the demand for large quantities of data restrict the use of this method. Sometimes, a quick overview of reservoir performance is sufficient or all required data are not accessible. Therefore, in this study a fast simulator is introduced to provide a quick overview with the minimum amount of data.A new method is presented to forecast the performance of water injection based on Transfer Function (TF). In this approach, it is assumed that a reservoir consists of a combination of TFs. The order and arrangement of TFs are chosen based on the physical conditions of the reservoir which are ascertained by examining several cases. The selected arrangement and orders can be extended to any other reservoirs. Injection and production rates act as input and output signals to these TFs, respectively. After analyzing input and output signals, the unknown parameters of TFs are calculated. Subsequently, it is possible to predict reservoir performance.Four different cases are employed to validate the derived equation. The results reveal a good agreement with those obtained from the common grid-based simulators. In addition, it has been demonstrated that the TF parameters depend on the characteristics and the pattern of different sections of the reservoir.This approach is a quick way to forecast waterflooding performance and can be a new window for the future of fast simulators. It provides the prediction with higher certainty in comparison with the other fast simulators. Furthermore, the only requirements for the method are injection and production rates. The analytical solution of the method enables its utilization in finding optimum rates for water injection in a short period of time. The method also presents some key parameters such as well connectivity. The use of the model is limited to situations when a rapid estimation is looked for and/or adequate data is not accessible.     

Customer oriented enterprise IT architecture framework

Due to the rapid expansion and complexity of mechanisms, technologies, systems, processes and communications in organizations, governance and management has become something beyond the control of hardware and software systems and include integration and convergence of all components of an organization. Enterprise architecture (EA) by breaking down the organization’s systems to its components and determining the relationship between them in different layers offers an appropriate solution for understanding and investigating relationships and processes of organizations which develop strategies and information technology plans. This paper proposes a conceptual model for enterprise IT architecture. For this purpose, conceptual and reference models of enterprise architecture are investigated and key concepts of them are described. By identifying dimensions of reviewed models, key dimensions of the proposed model are extracted and by using Shannon’s entropy, weight and priority of each dimension is determined. In order to determine building blocks of each dimension, a mapping has been established between customer and functional requirements by using axiomatic method and relations between customer and functional requirements has been validated by experts’ opinions using Quality Function Development (QFD) method. Proposed model has been described by determining goals, components and relations. Then the model is validated by surveying experts. Finally an Iranian telecommunication enterprise is selected for a case study and the model is tested there and promoting solutions are proposed to improve the status of the organization for implementing the model.