The selection and performance of adhesives for a steel-glass connection

200 Pages·2013·6.59 MB·English

University of Cambridge
Department of Engineering

Towards a Whole-life Value
Optimisation Model for Facade Design

This dissertation is submitted to the University of Cambridge in partial fulfilment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering

by
Qian Jin

Trinity Hall
July 2013

To my family,

with love and gratitude.

Acknowledgements
My sincere gratitude first goes for my supervisor, Dr. Mauro Overend. This work would have
never been possible without his inspiring supports, clear guidance, and constructive
suggestions. Many thanks for my advisor Dr. Ruchi Choudhary for her insightful suggestions
on the research direction.
Thanks also go for Mr Peter Thompson, who shared with me his years of practical
engineering experience, and Mr Jonathan Sakula and Ms Louise Sullivan at Buro Happold,
who provided the information on one of the case studies as well as a lot of useful advice,
which significantly facilitated the progress of entire PhD project.
I would like to thank Ms Neesha Gopal at Ramboll and Mr David Green, who is the
superintendent of the Engineering Workshops at the Department of Engineering, University
of Cambridge for their inputs throughout the course of the Inglis Building renovation project.
I would also like to thank Professor Derek Clements-croome and Professor Kevin Lomas for
sharing with me valuable documents and experimental data, which greatly helped me in
understanding the effect of indoor environmental quality on occupants and in validating a key
computational model, respectively.
I would like to thank all the gFT colleagues for their inputs and friendliness.
Many thanks to the Cambridge Overseas Trust for funding this PhD project.
Last but not least, my deepest gratitude to my family and friends, especially to my parents, for
their unconditional love, unwavering support and constant encouragement.

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Declaration
The author wishes to declare that, except for commonly understood and accepted ideas,
theories, and engineering principles, or where specific reference is made to the work of other
researchers, the content of this dissertation is her own work and includes nothing that is the
outcome of work done in collaboration.
This dissertation has not been submitted previously, in part or in whole, to any university of
institution for any degree, diploma or other certification. The full length of this dissertation is
62,343 words. It includes 71 figures and 61 tables.

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Towards a whole-life value optimisation model for facade design
Qian Jin
The aim of a façade is to selectively transmit, filter, and/or block phenomena, namely, heat
and mass transfer, acoustic transmission and light transmission between the indoor and
outdoor environment. In order to evaluate the performance of a façade, it is necessary to
assess several criteria that account for the multiple aspects of its whole-life value. However,
there is no single, agreed, and robust measure to do so. Furthermore, the transient nature of
the indoor and outdoor environments requires the facade to block or transmit on a seasonal or
diurnal basis rather than permanently, which adds another layer of complexity.
In the initial stages of this research project it was recognised that occupant productivity is
important in facade design of commercial buildings, because a small deterioration in the
indoor environmental quality (IEQ) could potentially lead to a large drop in occupant
productivity, which equates to a significant financial loss. However, there were no
comprehensive methods that accounted for this. In this research, a ‘multi-variant IEQ-
productivity’ relationship was first established to quantify the effect of IEQ on occupant
productivity. Based on this relationship, a whole-life value optimisation model was
constructed for facade design. It accounts for the functional, financial, and environmental
sustainability, which represent the three core dimensions of the whole-life value of alternative
façade options. The model was implemented in a real-world façade renovation project and a
new-build façade design project. In addition, sensitivity analysis was carried out to identify
the design variables that contribute most to the façade performance.
The ‘multi-variant IEQ- productivity’ relationship is the first known quantitative relationship
that accounts for the combinatorial effects of the four IEQ aspects (thermal comfort, aural
comfort, visual comfort, and air quality) on occupant productivity. Good agreements with
other studies were found in terms of aural comfort, thermal comfort, air quality, and the
combinatorial effects of thermal comfort and air quality. The façade design charts obtained
from the sensitivity analysis illustrate the impacts of façade design variables on the façade
performance indicators, and provide quantitative guidance on early-stage façade design. The
optimisation system developed in this research successfully identified optimal façade
solutions for the façade renovation project and the new-build project, and it can be used for

other facade design problems with multiple design objectives.
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Contents
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1
1.1 Background .................................................................................................................. 1
1.2 Objectives .................................................................................................................... 3
1.3 Outline of the thesis ..................................................................................................... 4
1.4 List of Publications ...................................................................................................... 5
2. Literature review................................................................................................................. 7
2.1 State of the art - high-performance façade technologies ............................................. 7
2.1.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 7
2.1.2 Solar Technologies ............................................................................................... 7
2.1.3 Heat-exchange Control Technologies ................................................................ 14
2.1.4 Ventilation Control Technologies ...................................................................... 17
2.2 Existing façade evaluation methodologies and tools ................................................. 19
2.2.1 Current façade design tools ................................................................................ 19
2.2.2 Façade performance assessment systems ........................................................... 19
2.2.3 A whole-life value approach............................................................................... 23
2.2.4 Summary ............................................................................................................. 25
2.3 Quantifying indoor environmental quality ................................................................ 26
2.3.1 Occupant productivity as a measure for indoor environmental quality (IEQ) ... 26
2.3.2 Quantifying indoor environmental quality using occupant productivity ........... 27
2.3.3 Summary ............................................................................................................. 29
2.4 Sensitivity analysis methods ...................................................................................... 30
2.4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 30
2.4.2 Sampling-based methods .................................................................................... 30
2.4.3 Variance-based methods ..................................................................................... 32
2.4.4 Applications ........................................................................................................ 34
2.4.5 Summary ............................................................................................................. 36
2.5 Multi-objective optimisation methods ....................................................................... 37
2.5.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 37
2.5.2 Transformation of multi to single objective optimisation .................................. 37
2.5.3 Summary ............................................................................................................. 44
3. A whole-life value assessment and optimisation system.................................................. 45
3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 45
3.2 A ‘multi-variant IEQ - productivity’ relationship ...................................................... 46
3.2.1 Establishment of a ‘multi-variant IEQ - productivity’ relationship ................... 46
3.2.2 Testing of the ‘multi-variant IEQ - productivity’ relationship ........................... 50
3.2.3 Summary ............................................................................................................. 60
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3.3 A whole-life value multi-objective optimisation system .......................................... 62
3.3.1 Simulation Engine .............................................................................................. 63
3.3.2 Database ............................................................................................................. 66
3.3.3 Optimisation Engine .......................................................................................... 66
3.3.4 User Interface ..................................................................................................... 68
3.3.5 Workflow of the system ..................................................................................... 68
4. Sensitivity analysis ........................................................................................................... 701
4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 71
4.2 Methodology ............................................................................................................. 72
4.2.1 Generic cellular office room .............................................................................. 72
4.2.2 Generic open-plan office floor ........................................................................... 74
4.2.3 Calculation of energy demand and the corresponding energy cost ................... 77
4.2.4 Calculation of comfort indicators and the corresponding employment cost ..... 77
4.2.5 Sensitivity analysis ............................................................................................. 78
4.3 Results and discussion ............................................................................................... 80
4.3.1 Visualisation and rationalisation of results ........................................................ 80
4.3.2 Cellular office scenarios ..................................................................................... 80
4.3.3 Open-plan office scenarios ................................................................................. 84
4.4 Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 89
5. Application to a façade renovation project ...................................................................... 901
5.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 91
5.2 Project description ..................................................................................................... 92
5.3 In-situ measurements ................................................................................................. 93
5.4 Computational model validation ............................................................................... 96
5.4.1 Model description .............................................................................................. 96
5.4.2 Results and discussion ....................................................................................... 98
5.5 Preliminary investigation ........................................................................................ 102
5.5.1 Methodology .................................................................................................... 102
5.5.2 Results and discussion ..................................................................................... 109
5.5.3 Summary .......................................................................................................... 111
5.6 Multi-objective optimisation ................................................................................... 112
5.6.1 Model description ............................................................................................ 112
5.6.2 Optimisation result for Office A ...................................................................... 114
5.7 Conclusions ............................................................................................................. 120
6. Application to a new-build project ................................................................................. 123
6.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 123
6.2 Project description ................................................................................................... 124
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