Introduction
Abstract: Behind any success story or any major achievement one can find traces of
one or a series of properly made decisions. Success stories such as designing a state
of the art building and achievements such as participating in saving the scarce energy resources for future generations while designing that state of the art building
are not simple tasks and cannot be accomplished easily. In this context, subjects that the architects and engineers in general and HVAC and energy engineers in partic-
ular are commonly occupied with are extremely important. In the United States alone about 40 % of the energy and close to 70 % of the electricity produced are consumed by buildings. Therefore what the architects and engineers do, if not properly done, can cause dire consequences not only for us but also for future generations.
Keywords: Energy, Efficient, Sustainable, Knowledge, Holistic, Evolutionary,
energy consumption, healthcare facilities, data centres, cleanrooms, laboratories,
decision making under uncertainty, fuzzy logic, Pareto optimality, genetic algo- rithm multi-objective optimization, artificial neural network, game theory, build-ings of the future, smart buildingsBehind any success story or any major achievement one can find traces of one or a series of properly made decisions. Success stories such as designing a state of the art building and achievements such as participating in saving the scarce energy
resources for future generations while designing that state of the art building are not
simple tasks and cannot be accomplished easily. In this context, subjects that the
architects and engineers in general and HVAC and energy engineers in particular are commonly occupied with are extremely important. In the United States alone
about 40 % of the energy and close to 70 % of the electricity produced are consumed by buildings. Therefore what the architects and engineers do, if not properly done, can cause dire consequences not only for us but also for future generations.
In my previous book “Energy Efficient HVAC Design, An Essential Guide for Sustainable Building” I did my best to briefly introduce most of the important and necessary topics that I thought are essential knowledge for an informed HVAC or architectural engineering student or young professional. In this new book my intention is not only to build even more on advancing the related and important topics for this community of practice, but also to introduce the most advanced tools and techniques in order to help a well-informed engineer select the best choices among all possible design options.
This book is divided into four main sections. In the first section I have presented
a short, yet holistic summary of the general heat transfer topics. No other basic
science has more roots and relevancy in HVAC and energy engineering than heat transfer. I have tried to shine some light on and remind the readers of the basic concepts of conduction, convection and radiation. Each of these heat transfer modes are responsible for parts of the overall heat gain or heat loss in the building which are the main target of the HVAC, energy and architectural engineering profes-
sionals to control in order to build a safe and comfortable space for our specific functions.
I have dedicated the rest of section one to the building load calculation and energy modelling basics. A short discussion about the evolutionary map and therefore different proposed methods of load calculation in the past few decades have been presented which shows the importance and role of heat transfer laws in defining the heat gain by buildings for the worst condition and therefore system
selection. More discussion has been presented which is directed towards how to
perform energy modelling in order to calculate the yearly energy consumption of
the building based on the current guidelines presented by the energy standards.
In the second section I have presented a discussion about a few high energy
consuming applications for building HVAC systems such as healthcare facilities,
data centres, cleanrooms and laboratories. Discussion is directed towards representing the fact that designing these applications are not only a daunting task from the point of view of complexity and control of such large and diverse loads, but also to represent the huge opportunities for saving energy if we design
more intellectually and find better solutions for our routine design approaches.
In the third section which is also the lengthiest section of the book, I have focused on a more general and yet extremely important discussion. First, I call it “general” because even though the examples and writings are generally directed towards the HVAC and energy consumption solutions, at the same time utilizing these methods and techniques are as good for any other field as they are for the HVAC and energy field of engineering. Also, I call it “extremely important” because in this section I have reviewed and presented some applications for some of the most advanced techniques in decision making that, even though they are relatively new but known in the world of academics, most of the professionals and their firms are not in general familiar with and therefore at best—to be generous—
rarely use them in their daily design and managerial routines. Adopting any of these
techniques in engineering routine works and design processes can turn the page on
how we design and how we make important decisions in a way that was not possible
before. In this section I have provided a general overview of the decision theory with the main target of describing available decision analysis tools. I have briefly described some of the available advanced decision making methods such as deci- sion making under uncertainty, fuzzy logic, Pareto optimality, genetic algorithm
multi-objective optimization, artificial neural network and game theory and then
used them for solving some hypothetically HVAC and energy engineering
applications.
In the final section of the book I have taken the concept of smart decision making
even further by imagining the fact that in the near future buildings on their own will
be capable of making decisions more accurately and in a more-timely manner—by
utilizing these decision making methods—than we are doing in the current envi-
ronment. This is a true definition of buildings of the future and smart buildings.
My main objective in writing this book, similar to my previous book, was to
expose the students and young professionals to a combination of the academic and
professional topics. Topics that, based on the students pursuance of graduate
education or choosing professional life, they may or may not be exposed to in
either path. My belief is that our field of engineering will not advance as it should if
the professionals continue working in a vacuum without understanding what the
advanced related topics are, and academic researchers will not have a realistic
picture of the HVAC and energy universe without understanding what the real
world problems and opportunities are. Getting both of these groups to understand
each other’s issues and talk with the same language is what I think can make this
field move as fast as it should in a correct route.
My other important objective in writing this book was to inspire the young
professionals and students to defy the conventional way of thinking about how to
design and conserve energy in our field of work and encourage them to make design
related decisions in a way that scientifically should be made. Such decisions should
be made with proper tools and methods—either those that currently exist or those
that are to be developed by the new generation of engineers themselves.
At this point I need to emphasize that material provided in this book does not
supersede the requirements given in any local and national code, regulation,
guideline and standard, and should not be regarded as a substitute for the need to
obtain specific professional advice for any particular system or application. The
main purpose of the book is to derive attention of the interested young readers to
some available advanced techniques that could be mastered by the readers through
hard study and work which then may help him or her to make better decisions while
designing buildings. Some hypothetical examples and a brief description of each
method have been given and I did my best to give some good sources of study about
each topic. It is the reader’s responsibility to familiarize himself or herself with the
subjects and methods through available books and other resources that discuss and
teach the methods in depth before deciding to implement each method to help his
decision making process. Each better decision that we can make regarding energy
consumption and design can help all of us to have a better planet and future.
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