Building Technology Laboratory

Assignment 11

Please design roof opening(s) for your Gujarati house and test it with a second round of daylighting measurements.

Assignment 10

Please read Chapter 3 (sections 1-6 and 10 only), Chapter 5 (sections 1-12 only, unless you are ambitious), and Chapter 7 of our textbook, Joseph Murdoch's Illuminating Engineering. 

Please take a set of base-case measurements in your Gujarati house.

Assignment 9

Please read Chapters 1 and 2 of our textbook, Joseph Murdoch's Illuminating Engineering. How to do this

Please take on the following tasks:

  1. Illuminance measurements. Use an illuminance meter to record light levels in residential spaces, including those used for food preparation, reading, and such detailed manual labor as sewing or electronics repair (i.e., a home shop or work room).
  2. Review IES illuminance criteria (from Murdoch or, better, the IES Handbooks which are in the lab and in the Rotch reference collection) for activities you think appropriate for a Gujarati house.
  3. Define desired lighting levels and any issues about light quality for a Gujarati house, on the basis of Tasks 1 and 2.
  4. Use the illuminance meter to estimate reflectances for typical walls and floors, including those in your test rooms.
  5. Review IES data on surface reflectances.
  6. Define desired wall, floor and ceiling reflectances for upcoming daylighting models of Gujarati houses.
  7. Select a Gujarati house, select modeling materials, and construct a model. Please pay attention to:
  8. Accurate dimensions, with careful notes about choices when available information is inadequate.

Assignment 8

The fourth week of our airflow lab is in two phases: 

  1. Please prepare an occupants’ manual for your Chinese apartment. Passively conditioned buildings require occupant involvement, much more than buildings with mechanical systems that ensure thermostat set points are maintained. Your apartment occupants can inhabit any of the rooms and can adjust the balcony openings and apartment windows and doors in a number of ways, for different wind and outdoor temperature conditions. 
  2. Please consider the effect of airflow on the rate at which a miniature structure (even smaller than our elf houses) cools off. This is intended to combine thermal and airflow analysis.

Assignment 7

The third week of our airflow lab focuses on simulation:

  1. Prepare to use the CONTAMW airflow simulation program, installed on two working computers in lab and available free to all with Windows computers. 
  2. Become proficient in CONTAMW by completing the provided worksheet.
  3. Use CONTAMW for the following investigation of your apartment-balcony, working at full (and not model) scale:

 

Assignment 5

The goal of this assignment, the first phase of the lab project that focuses on airflows and building ventilation, is to design, construct in model form, and test an enclosure (partial or full) for a typical balcony for a Chinese apartment. The motivation for this work is to propose feasible designs for Chinese residential buildings that are thermally comfortable and use a minimal amount of energy.

Assignment 4

The fourth and last phase of our first lab consists of the following: 

  1. Download data from your second test period, which should be a week long and a minimum of six days. 
  2. Compare your measured data with an after-the-fact prediction made with measured outdoor temperature and solar radiation. 
  3. Adapt the provided Matlab .m file to accurately simulate your elf house. 
  4. Prepare a 10-minute presentation for lab next week to describe your work, which should include all data and as much analysis as you have been able to perform. No need to cover Mr. Potato Head. No late presentations, please!
  5. Prepare a written lab report using the provided checklist and submit the report in lab in two weeks. 

Assignment 3

The third phase of our first lab consists of six parts: 

  1. Submit your estimate of your elf-house temperatures for the first test period.
  2. Download data.
  3. Modify your elf house as needed to keep the indoor temperature closer to the target value of 20°C. 
  4. Re-install the Hobo loggers and again deploy your house on the roof.
  5. Estimate the impact of solar energy absorbed on walls and the roof.  
  6. Use Solar Calculator 2 to design a full-size dwelling (single room is fine), subject to the same goal of a constant 20°C indoor temperature under February weather. 

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