Manuel Gameiro da Silva

Eugénio Rodrigues, Luísa Dias Pereira, Adélio Rodrigues Gaspar et al.

This paper presents a multi-layer perceptron model for the estimation of classrooms number of occupants from sensed indoor environmental data-relative humidity, air temperature, and carbon dioxide concentration. The modelling datasets were collected from two classrooms in the Secondary School of Pombal, Portugal. The number of occupants and occupation periods were obtained from class attendance reports. However, post-class occupancy was unknown and the developed model is used to reconstruct the classrooms occupancy by filling the unreported periods. Different model structure and environment variables combination were tested. The model with best accuracy had as input vector 10 variables of five averaged time intervals of relative humidity and carbon dioxide concentration. The model presented a mean square error of 1.99, coefficient of determination of 0.96 with a significance of p-value < 0.001, and a mean absolute error of 1 occupant. These results show promising estimation capabilities in uncertain indoor environment conditions.

Eugénio Rodrigues, Ana Rita Amaral, Adélio Rodrigues Gaspar et al.

Building practitioners (architects, engineers, energy managers) are showing a growing interest in the design of more energy efficient and livable buildings. The best way to predict how a building will behave regarding energy consumption and thermal comfort is to use a dynamic simulation tool. However, the use of this kind of tools is difficult on a daily basis practice due to the heuristic and exploratory nature of the architectural design process. To deal with this difficulty, the University of Coimbra and three companies have been working on the development of a prototype design aiding tool, specifically devoted to the space planning phase of building design, under the project GerAPlanO (Automatic Generation of Architecture Floor plans with Energy Optimization). This project aims to combine the capabilities of design generation techniques, thermal assessment programs, and design optimization methods to provide assistance to decision makers. This paper presents the overall concept, as well as the current status of development of this tool.

Eugénio Rodrigues, Adélio R. Gaspar, Álvaro Gomes et al.

During the earliest phase of architectural design process, practitioners after analyzing the client's design program, legal requirements, topographic constraints, and preferences synthesize these requirements into architectural floor plan drawings. Design decisions taken in this phase may significantly contribute to the building performance. On account of this reason, it is important to estimate and compare alternative solutions, when it is still manageable to change the building design. The authors have been developing a prototype tool to assist architects during this initial design phase. It is made up of two algorithms. The first algorithm generates alternative floor plans according to the architect's preferences and requirements, and the client's design program. It consists in one evolutionary strategy approach enhanced with local search technique to allocate rooms on several levels in the two-dimensional space. The second algorithm evaluates, ranks, and optimizes those floor plans according to thermal performance criteria. The prototype tool is coupled with dynamic simulation program, which estimates the thermal behavior of each solution. A sequential variable optimization is used to change several geometric values of different architectural elements in the floor plans to explore the improvement potential. In the present communication, the two algorithms are used in an iterative process to generate and optimize the thermal performance of alternative floor plans. In the building simulation specifications of EnergyPlus program, the airflow network model has been used in order to adequately model the air infiltration and the airflows through indoor spaces. A case study of a single-family house with three rooms in a single level is presented.