A Novel Method Based on Neural Networks for Designing Internal Coverings in Buildings: Energy Saving and Thermal Comfort

Abstract

Featured Application: This work shows a new methodology to optimize the exact amount of permeable internal coverings in a building, thereby becoming a passive method control system for this indoor ambience.Abstract: Although several papers define energy saving and thermal comfort optimization with internal coverings materials, none of them deal with predictive models to improve design in building constructions. Thus, artificial intelligence (AI) procedures were applied in this paper. In particular, neural networks (NNs) were designed for indoor ambiences with internal covering materials in different buildings, were trained and employed to predict indoor ambiences (indoor temperature and relative humidity as a function of weather conditions), and, based on these procedures, local thermal comfort conditions and energy consumption, due to the type of internal covering permeability level, were calculated. Results from this original methodology showed a better acceptability of indoor ambiences when permeable coating materials were used, in agreement with previous research works. At the same time, with permeable coverings, a lower energy consumption of 20% in the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems was needed to reach more comfortable conditions during the summer season in the first hours of occupation. Finally, all these results suggest an original methodology to optimize indoor ambiences based on the design of internal coverings by NN.

Applying Artificial Neural Networks In Construction

“…Neural network technologies are widely used in tasks related to energy efficiency and energy consumption in buildings [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. First of all, ANN are used in the tasks of forecasting the loads on heating and cooling systems, electricity consumption and analysis of energy consumption [6,8,11,12,14,17,18,19].…”

“…Neural networks are also used to study the thermal insulation properties of materials, the thermal and heat insulation property of building wall [7,10].…”

Sustainable Energy Systems Planning, Integration and Management

“…In [12], a new methodology was proposed for internal covering designs to enhance the permeable, semi-permeable, and impermeable internal coverings effect over indoor ambiences. The artificial neural network was used to forecast the indoor ambience.…”

Prediction of the Compressive Strength of Environmentally Friendly Concrete Using Artificial Neural Network

“…At present, the topic of the use of neural networks in various fields of human activity is extremely popular. Many methods and methodologies based on the application of ANN are used in the construction industry for optimization, control, problems of identification and forecasting (Das, Swetapadma & Panigrahi, 2019;Orosa et al, 2019;Pezeshki & Mazinani, 2019;Fei, Youfu & Xuejun, 2019).…”