Article
Thermodynamics
Carmen Maria Calama-Gonzalez, Angel Luis Leon-Rodriguez, Rafael Suarez
Summary: Climate change has a severe impact on the built indoor environment, emphasizing the importance of retrofitting buildings. This research compares a ventilated double skin facade with an unretrofitted solution to assess their impact on thermal comfort under Mediterranean winter and summer conditions. The study finds that the double skin facade performs better in summer but may lead to indoor overheating at night. In winter, it has less comfort hours compared to the unretrofitted solution but shows better thermal performance under minimum peak temperatures.
CASE STUDIES IN THERMAL ENGINEERING
(2022)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Sokol Dervishi, Frida Pashako, Xhenisa Dushaj, Ina Osmani Dervishi
Summary: This study focused on the thermal performance of traditional residential buildings in Albania and found that retrofitting the building fabric could significantly improve energy performance and thermal comfort, with a relatively short payback period.
JOURNAL OF BUILDING ENGINEERING
(2022)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Carmen Maria Calama-Gonzalez, Angel Luis Leon-Rodriguez, Rafael Suarez
Summary: This research evaluates the impact of different ventilation systems on thermal comfort and indoor air quality in retrofitted residential spaces, finding that there are barely perceptible differences between mechanical and natural ventilation systems in spaces with low thermal inertia, highlighting the clear advantage of passive systems in terms of energy and economic savings.
JOURNAL OF BUILDING ENGINEERING
(2021)
Article
Thermodynamics
Krzysztof Barnas, Tomasz Jelenski, Marzena Nowak-Oclon, Kinga Racon-Leja, Elzbieta Radziszewska-Zielina, Bartlomiej Szewczyk, Grzegorz Sladowski, Cezary Tos, Petar Sabev Varbanov
Summary: This paper proposes a comprehensive adaptation approach for prefabricated panel-block buildings, targeting Eastern Bloc countries' technologies. The approach utilizes Geographic Information Systems, urban and social analysis, and Multi-Criteria Decision-Making methods for thermal retrofitting and addressing accessibility and public space deficiencies. The proposed model includes an energy audit and measures to reduce energy consumption, potentially saving users up to 80% of their current energy consumption and related emissions.
Article
Thermodynamics
Juan M. Gonzalez-Caballin Sanchez, A. Meana-Fernandez, J. C. Rios-Fernandez, A. J. Gutierrez Trashorras
Summary: This study investigated the characteristics of energy retrofitting in the housing stock of Spain, focusing on the envelope and thermal systems. The results showed that retrofitting reduced energy consumption and emissions by 37.7% to 58%, depending on the climate zone. Single-family houses were more responsive to energy improvements compared to multi-family homes. The findings of this research can serve as a reference for future studies on energy retrofitting and energy savings in housing stock.
BUILDING SIMULATION
(2023)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Najeeba Kutty, Dua Barakat, Maatouk Khoukhi
Summary: Cities are focusing more on building energy use and carbon footprint for sustainability. In the building sector, attention is growing towards energy efficient retrofit strategies. This study demonstrates the feasibility of retrofitting a French Puccini house to achieve nearly zero energy consumption with the use of passive and active strategies, providing a guideline for retrofitting traditional French single-family residences.
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Luca Borghero, Elisenda Cleries, Thibault Pean, Joana Ortiz, Jaume Salom
Summary: The intensity and duration of heat waves in upcoming summers are expected to increase due to climate change. As a result, existing buildings may not have sufficient thermal resilience to provide comfortable conditions for their occupants. Cooling strategies, such as natural ventilation and air conditioning, become increasingly important as these climatic events intensify. Simulation experiments have compared the behavior of a selected case study apartment under passive measures (natural ventilation) and active measures (mechanical ventilation and air conditioning). The results show that external overheating progressively weakens the thermal resilience of the building in ventilation scenarios, while air conditioning is more effective in maintaining comfortable conditions inside the house. The behavior of the user plays a fundamental role, as an aware user can significantly enhance comfort with natural ventilation and reduce energy consumption by an average of 15% with air conditioning.
BUILDING AND ENVIRONMENT
(2023)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Carmen Maria Calama-Gonzalez, Rafael Suarez, Angel Luis Leon-Rodriguez
Summary: This paper focuses on assessing the current performance of one of the most representative building typologies in the social housing stock in southern Spain, predicting indoor thermal comfort results at the stock level. By using physical, constructive, and geometrical building characterization and selecting a calibrated and validated case study, parameterized energy simulation models are generated to provide statistically representative samples of the stock.
ENERGY AND BUILDINGS
(2022)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Arnaud Jay, Anais Pacquaut, Adrien Brun, Philippe Marechal, Pierre Bernaud, Etienne Wurtz
Summary: This article analyzes the thermal behavior of an experimental house in a Mediterranean climate. The study emphasizes the importance of passive solutions, such as solar gain management, natural ventilation, and thermal inertia. Dynamic thermal simulations and measurements demonstrate the effectiveness of these passive solutions in maintaining a comfortable indoor temperature during summer and utilizing solar gains more efficiently during winter.
BUILDING AND ENVIRONMENT
(2023)
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Robert C. Vella, Charles Yousif, Francisco Javier Rey Martinez, Javier Maria Rey Hernandez
Summary: This paper examines the effectiveness of selective passive measures in church buildings, aiming to protect the macroclimate and achieve a sustainable and comfortable indoor environment. The results show that certain passive measures can alleviate severe indoor temperature fluctuations, creating a more comfortable environment. However, environmental control presents conservation challenges. Historic church buildings, designed with passive features for internal comfort, outperform expectations and more contemporary structures overall.
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Luciana Rocha, Rui Fernandes Povoas, Joana Restivo
Summary: This study critically analyzes the interventions in the housing estates built under Porto's Improvement Plan, which resulted in significant urban and social restructuring in the mid-twentieth century. Despite previous interventions, these buildings still face challenges in terms of energy poverty and adapting to domestic comfort parameters. The research examines the intervention strategies used, as well as the constraints imposed by legislation and funding conditions, and proposes future strategies for a more energetically balanced housing stock.
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Antonio Serrano-Jimenez, Carmen Diaz-Lopez, Konstantin Verichev, Angela Barrios-Padura
Summary: This research presents a novel energy retrofitting solution for existing buildings by injecting polyurethane foam insulation into the carpentry profiles of aluminium windows. The solution improves thermal performance, enhances indoor comfort, and achieves positive indoor thermal balance.
ENERGY AND BUILDINGS
(2023)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Anna Figueroa-Lopez, Xabat Oregi, Marta Almeida, Rufino J. Hernandez-Minguillon
Summary: Indoor Environmental Quality has an impact on the health of educational centre users. This study analyzed the hygrothermal comfort of three case studies with different ventilation systems in the same city. Results showed better comfort in summer than in winter. Both naturally and mechanically ventilated classrooms achieved comfortable temperatures, but the gyms had very low temperatures during winter.
JOURNAL OF BUILDING ENGINEERING
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Kevin Bornez, Aleixandre Verger, Adria Descals, Josep Penuelas
Summary: Monitoring the phenological responses of deciduous forests to climate is crucial due to increasing extreme climatic events. The study analyzed spatiotemporal patterns of forest responses to climate anomalies and assessed the impact of extreme heatwaves and droughts. Results showed temperature played a stronger role than precipitation in affecting interannual variability of phenology.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Laura Romero Rodriguez, Jose Sanchez Ramos, Maria del Carmen Guerrero Delgado, Servando Alvarez Dominguez
Summary: The Urban Heat Island (UHI) is an important phenomenon that receives attention from the scientific community. This study develops a methodology to improve building simulations using rural and urban data, and evaluates the impact of UHI on energy consumption.
Article
Energy & Fuels
Carmen Maria Calama-Gonzalez, Phil Symonds, Giorgos Petrou, Rafael Suarez, Angel Luis Leon-Rodriguez
Summary: This paper presents the application of a Bayesian calibration approach to improve the energy efficiency of buildings, showing that the combination of sensitivity analysis and Bayesian calibration techniques can enhance the agreement between on-site measurements and simulated outputs.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Enedina Alberdi, Miguel Galindo, Angel L. Leon-Rodriguez
Summary: In the 16th century, the Society of Jesus built numerous churches with a Latin cross and a single nave following the Tridentine model. The church of San Luis de los Franceses in Seville, Spain, is a Baroque church with a central floor plan that has been repurposed as a theater and concert venue. Analysis of the church's sound field evolution from the 18th to 21st centuries shows stable characteristics, with the dome playing a significant role in the results for different configurations studied.
APPLIED SCIENCES-BASEL
(2021)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Carmen Maria Calama-Gonzalez, Rafael Suarez, Angel Luis Leon-Rodriguez
Summary: This paper focuses on assessing the current performance of one of the most representative building typologies in the social housing stock in southern Spain, predicting indoor thermal comfort results at the stock level. By using physical, constructive, and geometrical building characterization and selecting a calibrated and validated case study, parameterized energy simulation models are generated to provide statistically representative samples of the stock.
ENERGY AND BUILDINGS
(2022)
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Alicia Alonso, Carmen Maria Calama-Gonzalez, Rafael Suarez, Angel Luis Leon-Rodriguez, Miguel Hernandez-Valencia
Summary: Given the role of the building sector as one of the main causes of pollution in cities, research on energy efficiency and sustainable strategies is crucial. This study analyzes the comfort conditions of a real-scale housing prototype and compares it with solely energy-related assessment. It aims to provide valuable information for optimizing building performance.
ENERGY FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
(2022)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Carmen Maria Calama-Gonzalez, Angel Luis Leon-Rodriguez, Rafael Suarez
Summary: This research evaluates the impact of different ventilation systems on thermal comfort and indoor air quality in retrofitted residential spaces, finding that there are barely perceptible differences between mechanical and natural ventilation systems in spaces with low thermal inertia, highlighting the clear advantage of passive systems in terms of energy and economic savings.
JOURNAL OF BUILDING ENGINEERING
(2021)
Article
Mathematics
Carlos-Antonio Dominguez-Torres, Angel Luis Leon-Rodriguez, Rafael Suarez, Antonio Dominguez-Delgado
Summary: This research examines the thermal behavior of an opaque ventilated facade with a window and its impact on energy savings. Experimental and numerical analysis shows that the ventilated facade reduces energy consumption and provides indoor comfort. The findings are significant for retrofitting energy-obsolete building stock in Spain.
Article
Thermodynamics
Carlos-Antonio Dominguez-Torres, Rafael Suarez, Angel Luis Leon-Rodriguez, Antonio Dominguez-Delgado
Summary: This article presents a modular dynamic model for simulating the energy behavior of building envelopes and solving complex problems. The model has been validated experimentally and compared with Energy-Plus software, showing its accuracy and reliability.
APPLIED THERMAL ENGINEERING
(2022)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Carmen Maria Calama-Gonzalez, Rafael Suarez, Angel Luis Leon-Rodriguez
Summary: This study evaluates the thermal performance of the existing social housing stock in southern Spain using dynamic simulation and identifies the best low-cost retrofit solutions through numerical optimization. The findings suggest that retrofit solutions solely relying on passive and low-cost operation measures have limited impact on improving thermal comfort.
ENERGY AND BUILDINGS
(2022)
Article
Thermodynamics
Carmen Maria Calama-Gonzalez, Angel Luis Leon-Rodriguez, Rafael Suarez
Summary: Climate change has a severe impact on the built indoor environment, emphasizing the importance of retrofitting buildings. This research compares a ventilated double skin facade with an unretrofitted solution to assess their impact on thermal comfort under Mediterranean winter and summer conditions. The study finds that the double skin facade performs better in summer but may lead to indoor overheating at night. In winter, it has less comfort hours compared to the unretrofitted solution but shows better thermal performance under minimum peak temperatures.
CASE STUDIES IN THERMAL ENGINEERING
(2022)
Article
Construction & Building Technology
Rocio Escandon, Carmen Maria Calama-Gonzalez, Alicia Alonso, Rafael Suarez, Angel Luis Leon-Rodriguez
Summary: This study evaluates the indoor and outdoor thermal conditions, as well as cooling and heating demands, in southern Spain for 2050 and 2080 using simulated future climate data. The results show that the selection of different climate data projection methods has a significant impact on the analysis of thermal comfort and energy demand, although the influence is considerably reduced when an annual evaluation is conducted.
Article
Energy & Fuels
Carmen Maria Calama-Gonzalez, Angel Luis Leon-Rodriguez, Rafael Suarez
Summary: This study investigates the impact of climate change on thermal comfort in social housing in southern Spain and explores low-cost strategies controlled by users to achieve acceptable thermal comfort. The results suggest that climate change leads to a greater increase in outdoor temperatures in summer than in winter. Ventilation and window operation can significantly improve thermal comfort, with different orientations showing varying levels of comfort. The study also highlights the importance of mechanical and natural ventilation schedules in preventing overheating and undercooling discomfort.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
(2023)
