Renovation of existing buildings is an indispensable part of achieving European efficiency and environmental targets. This paper applies different assessment methodologies to find optimal renovation, given different evaluation criteria. The performed literature study identifies the cost-optimal methodology employing Life Cycle Cost (LCC) calculation as one of the most common assessment methods. This paper proposes a new renovation assessment method targeted to the early design phases of specific building projects. The method has a simple structure, and can be used as a roadmap of necessary activities for obtaining solid building knowledge and required energy and cost calculations. The methodology is based on linking economic and energy efficiency parameters into defined cost-effective value, calculated for all investigated renovation actions. The cost-effectiveness value is used for ranking and selecting the most appropriate single renovation actions to form renovation packages, which can be further examined in detail (for example, with LCC). To demonstrate the method, evaluate the strengths, and identify the weaknesses, it is applied to case study buildings in Denmark and Switzerland. The results show that, in the initial stage, the proposed cost-effectiveness representation can be used successfully to compare and evaluate different envelope elements and systems. Cost-effectiveness also provides rational results on a package level. Further work is still required in the area of evaluation of energy supply and renewable energy production systems.
Low-Voltage Mineral Deposition technology (LVMD), widely known as Biorock, has previously been suggested as support for coral reef restoration, as hypothesized high porosity, wide pore-size distribution and connectivity, and good strength properties may facilitate biological functions (for example larvae settlement) and durability. In this technology, very low voltage induces an electrical current that initiates precipitation and accretion of hard minerals (aragonite and calcite) on a metal in seawater. This technology has been discussed mainly for its biological value, while this paper wants to highlight also its engineering value as artificial reef material. Indeed, some of the properties that makes it valuable in one domain are also supporting its use in the other. Because the metal on which the precipitation takes place can be of any shape and size, so can the artificial reef and its mechanical strength characteristics are above the ones of corals and similar to concrete, indicating adequate durability. Coral and boulder reefs suffering from degradation have severe implications on biodiversity, protection from flooding, and cultural value and therefore understanding how to persevere and re-establish these ecosystems is central for sustainable intervention in the marine environment. By comparing chemical-physical characteristics of Coral Porites Exoskeleton (CPE), one typical reef building coral type, LVMD and High-Voltage Mineral Deposition (HVMD), we show that they possess highly similar properties including chemical composition, density, total porosity, pore-size distribution, physical and chemical heterogeneity, total and external surface areas, and comparable mechanical strength.
Fibre materials are widely used as insulation materials in both clothing and the building industry. The transport of heat and air through fibre insulation materials are accountable for both the energy need for indoor space conditioning and the indoor environment quality inside buildings. A better understanding of the thermodynamics of those materials can enable higher quality products for improved energy efficiency. By using fast gas permeability measurements and more time-consuming guarded hot plate measurements, this study investigates the link between thermal conductivity and gas permeability for Rockwool, Kevlar and polyester fibres, at different compaction levels. Correlations between gas permeability and thermal conductivity at different total volumes of solid are presented. The experimental results show that the gas permeability and thermal conductivity exhibited a change in their evolution trend, due to compaction, in the same zone of the total volume of solid for all materials. The presence of this transition zone enables to establish a link between the measurement of gas permeability and thermal conductivity. This correlation can be employed to perform rapid thermal conductivity assessment of fibrous material, which can be cost-effective for fibre manufacturers or building contractors, but also quality assessment in the textile industry.
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