Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are highly efficient power generators, achieving up to 50-60% conversion efficiency, even at sizes of a few kilowatts. PEMFCs have zero pollutant emissions when fueled directly with hydrogen, and near zero emissions when coupled to reformers. These attributes make them potentially attractive for a variety of applications including electric vehicles a...

This work presents the implementation of a Model Predictive Control (MPC) scheme used to study the improvement of the thermal quality in aged residential buildings without any rehabilitation. The controller manages the heating system of an experimentally characterized model of a residential dwelling in a social block built during the decade of the 1960s located in the neighborhood of Otxarkoaga...

This paper is concerned with the design of an Incremental Radial Basis Function Network (IRBFN) by combining Linear Regression (LR) and local RBFN for the prediction of heating load and cooling load in residential buildings. Here the proposed IRBFN is designed by building a collection of information granules through Context-based Fuzzy C-Means (CFCM) clustering algorithm that is guided by the d...

The application of building simulation and modelling is becoming more widespread, particularly in the analysis of residential buildings. The energy consumption and control of systems in residential buildings are tightly linked to the behaviour of people, arguably more so than in commercial buildings which have traditionally been the preserve of building simulation analysis. The input profiles u...

In modern times, when climate change is getting more and more drastic and issues like CO2 emission and energy efficiency are becoming more and more important, it is necessary to find possible energy savings in every area. To achieve these possible savings also in the residential area it is essential to establish Intelligent Building Automation in residential buildings. Therefore, within the fra...

This research aims to develop indicators for assessing green interior design of new residential buildings in China, grounded in the socio-technical systems approach. The research was carried out through a critical literature review and two focus group studies. The results show that the boundaries of green interior design were identified with respect to three dimensions, namely performance, meth...

In order to overcome negative consequences of a disaster, buildings and infrastructures need to be resilient. After a disaster occurs, they must get back to their normal operations as quickly as possible. Buildings and infrastructures should incorporate both pre-event (preparedness and mitigation) and post-event (response and recovery) resilience activities to minimize negative effects of a dis...

The problem of waste generation, handling and disposal has reached a disturbing level in Nigerian urban centres. This study attempts to examine the impacts of domestic waste on the residential environment of some selected neighbourhoods of Akure, capital city of Ondo State, Nigeria based on the waste disposal methods currently employed by the inhabitants of each building. The paper studied two ...

More than half of the urban population in Romania lives today in residential buildings made out of large prefabricated reinforced concrete panels. Since their initial design was made in the 1960’s, these housing units are now being technically and morally outdated, consuming large amounts of energy for heating, cooling, ventilation and lighting, while failing to meet the needs of the contempora...

Several studies have addressed the impact of buildings on energy demand and consumption in recent years. Urban areas are set to become greater energy consumers and the residential building stock has a great deal. Energy efficiency regulations in buildings are recent, and most of the housing stock is far from meeting present standard and is responsible of a high percentage of global energy consu...