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Buildings & Construction

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Displaying 1001 - 1025 of 3878

Residential Heat Pump Heating Performance with Single Faults Imposed

July 11, 2010
Author(s)
Seok H. Yoon, William V. Payne, Piotr A. Domanski
A heat pump equipped with a thermostatic expansion valve (TXV) was tested in environmental chambers during steady-state no-fault and imposed-fault operation. The studied system was an R410A split residential heat pump with an 8.8 kW nominal cooling

Chemical Species and Temperature Mapping in Full Scale Underventilated Compartment Fires

July 5, 2010
Author(s)
Andrew J. Lock, Matthew F. Bundy, Erik L. Johnsson, Kelly M. Opert, Anthony P. Hamins, Cheolhong Hwang, Ki Y. Lee
Many injuries and deaths throughout the world are caused by fires each year. Many of the deaths are the result of toxic gas inhalation, such as carbon monoxide, by a victim remote from the actual fire source. In order to facilitate better building

Numerical Simulation of Polymeric Materials in UL 94 Test: Competition Between Gasification and Melt Flow / Dripping

July 5, 2010
Author(s)
Kathryn M. Butler, Florian Kempel, Bernhard Schartel, Anja Hofmann, Eugenio O?, Sergio R. Idelsohn, Riccardo Rossi, Julio M. Marti
The capability of the Particle Finite Element Method (PFEM, developed by CIMNE) to model the complex fire behaviour of polymers in the UL 94 scenario was investigated. For validation, a series of four PC/ABS blends were chosen, which covered different UL

MODELING THE BURNING OF COMPLICATED OBJECTS USING LAGRANGIAN PARTICLES

July 4, 2010
Author(s)
Kevin B. McGrattan, Randall J. McDermott, William E. Mell, Glenn P. Forney, Jason E. Floyd, Simo A. Hostikka
A methodology is described for representing complicated objects within a computational fluid dynamics model. These objects are typically collections of similar items that are too small to define on the numerical grid that is used to solve the governing

A Sensor-Driven Fire Model, Version 1.2

July 1, 2010
Author(s)
William D. Davis
Modern building fire sensors are capable of supplying substantially more information to the fire service than just the simple detection of a possible fire. In order to use this information, a decision support system needs to be developed that interprets a

WIND DRIVEN FIRES IN STRUCTURES

July 1, 2010
Author(s)
Daniel M. Madrzykowski, Stephen Kerber
Fires in high-rise buildings create unique safety challenges for building occupants and fire fighters. Smoke and heat spreading through the corridors and the stairs of a building during a fire can limit building occupants ability to escape and can limit

Evolutionary Computation Approach to Heat Exchanger Design

June 26, 2010
Author(s)
David A. Yashar, Janusz Wojusiak, Kenneth Kaufman, Piotr A. Domanski
The efficiency of a vapor compression system is strongly influenced by the performance of the finned-tube heat exchangers it employs. Heat exchanger performance is strongly influenced by the refrigerant circuitry, i.e., the connection sequence of the tubes

AN ADHESION TEST METHOD FOR SPRAY-APPLIED FIRE-RESISTIVE MATERIALS

June 21, 2010
Author(s)
Kar T. Tan, Christopher C. White, Donald L. Hunston
Adhesion of spray-applied fire-resistive materials (SFRMs) to steel structures is critical in enabling the capacity of a building to remain functional for a specific length of time during a fire for life safety and fire department assess. Empirical tests

Representing Egress Behaviour in Engineering Terms

June 16, 2010
Author(s)
Steve M. Gwynne, Erica D. Kuligowski, Daniel Nilsson
When using engineering tools to calculate RSET, the engineer must have sufficient expertise to identify actual human factors that will influence the outcome of an evacuation in a particular situation. The engineer must then represent these factors in the

Role of Nanoparticles in Life Cycle of Nanocomposites

June 15, 2010
Author(s)
Xiaohong Gu, Guodong Chen, Minhua Zhao, Stephanie S. Watson, Paul E. Stutzman, Tinh Nguyen, Joannie W. Chin, Jonathan W. Martin
The objective of this study is to investigate the role of ZnO nanoparticles in the life cycle of a waterborne polyurethane (PU) nanocomposite during UV exposure. The effects of loadings and sizes of ZnO nanoparticles on photodegradation of ZnO/PU films

Evaporator Optimization for Non-Uniform Air Distribution

June 13, 2010
Author(s)
Piotr A. Domanski, David A. Yashar, Sunil Lee
This study demonstrates the performance improvements that can be achieved by accounting for the in-situ air flow distribution during the design phase of a heat exchanger. The heat exchanger used in this study was a two-slab, A-shaped finned-tube evaporator

Occupant Behavior in a High-rise Office Building Fire

June 10, 2010
Author(s)
Erica D. Kuligowski, Bryan L. Hoskins
Survey responses from occupants involved in a 32-story high-rise building evacuation during an actual fire were collected and analyzed to study the pre-evacuation period. Multiple regression models were used to test whether specific occupant, building, and

Ultraviolet Weathering of Firefighter Protective Clothing

June 4, 2010
Author(s)
Rick D. Davis, Joannie W. Chin, Chiao-Chi Lin, Sylvain H. Petit
Exposure to simulated ultraviolet sunlight at 50 C and 50 % relative humidity caused a significant deterioration in the mechanical performance of polyaramid and polyaramid/polybenzimidazole based Outer Shell fabrics used in firefighter jacket and pants

Test Suite for Building Energy Analysis of Conceptual Spatial Layout

May 11, 2010
Author(s)
Kenway K. Chen, Robert R. Lipman, Mark E. Palmer
This report documents a test suite for validation and conformance testing in support of the interoperability among building design and energy analysis applications. The objectives of this test suite are to: provide to software vendors test cases to

Measuring and improving U.S. construction productivity

May 10, 2010
Author(s)
Robert E. Chapman, David T. Butry, Allison L. Huang
Although the construction industry is a major component of the U.S. economy, it has experienced a prolonged period of decline in productivity. Due to the critical lack of measurement methods, however, the magnitude of the productivity problem in the U.S

Variances of Plane Parameters Fitted to Range Data

May 5, 2010
Author(s)
Marek Franaszek
Formulas for variances of plane parameters fitted with Nonlinear Least Squares to points cloud acquired by 3D imaging systems (e.g., LADAR) are derived. Two different error functions used in minimization are discussed: the orthogonal and the directional

Better IAQ using ASHRAE Guide

May 3, 2010
Author(s)
Andrew K. Persily, Martha Hewett
Over the years, there have been many important contributions directed towards improving IAQ in buildings, including Standard 62.1 and other publications (EPA and NIOSH 1991; SMACNA 2007). In addition, ASHRAE, the International Society for Indoor Air
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