The health risks posed by hot weather are growing as increasingly frequent extreme weather is brought about by climate change. People spend upwards of 80% of time indoors and so human health is largely dependent on the internal environment of buildings. In the building industry engineers currently design buildings for high-energy performance by maximising heat retention, and whilst this may be effective in cold winters, it can lead to unbearable indoor conditions in hot summers. Thermal comfort inside buildings is a well-discussed topic both in industry and academia, but absolute peak thresholds, especially for heat stress still require development. In this thesis the outcomes of research into the effects of current and future hot weather on the heat stress of occupants inside buildings are presented. Hot weather data from the current climate and mortality rates are compared and several temperature metrics are analysed with respect to health risk forecasting performance, so that peak threshold limits for human health indoors are established for the building design industry. Reference weather data used in building simulations for health assessment is currently chosen based on air temperature alone. In this thesis new reference weather data is created for near-extreme and extreme weather and for current and future climates, based on the peak threshold metric research and future weather analysis. By 2050 hot weather reference years currently occurring once every seven years could become an annual occurrence, and by 2080 extreme hot weather reference years currently occurring once in twenty-one years could become an annual occurrence. Computational fluid dynamics is then used to simulate the internal heat stress inside a building model, and a surrogate model is created to emulate heat stress levels for full calendar years of future climates for several UK locations. It is envisaged that the results presented in this thesis will help inform the industry development of new reference data and aid better building design.

Crack detection at an early stage can prevent catastrophic structural failures. In this thesis, the inverse problem of crack detection in frames is studied. The direct problem of calculating the natural frequencies of beams and frames with multiple cracks is first tackled. A new method for natural frequency calculation is devised. The cracks are modelled as rotational springs. 4 × 4 dynamic stiffness matrices for beams are evaluated in a recursive manner, according to the number of cracks, by applying partial Gaussian eliminations. The resulting transcendental eigenvalue problem is solved using the Wittrick–Williams algorithm to extract the natural frequencies. Additional sign counts resulting from the partial Gaussian eliminations must be accounted for when applying the algorithm. The dynamic stiffness matrix of a frame with multiply cracked members is then assembled. The natural frequency calculation method forms a basis for detecting a single crack in a frame using only natural frequency measurements. Each frame member is discretised into a number of points. Selected natural frequencies are calculated accurately in the uncracked case and when the crack is placed individually at each discretisation point. The variation between the uncracked and cracked frequencies is normalised giving a number of curves corresponding to the selected frequencies. The normalisation is then applied on the measured frequencies. For noise free measurements, point crack locations are obtained. Applying the principles of interval arithmetic, noisy measurements give crack location ranges. Empirical probability distributions are used to graphically represent these ranges and their relative probabilities. Crack severity ranges are then obtained. The detection method is validated experimentally on a frame with scaled down dimensions. The fast Fourier transform is used to convert the time domain vibration signal into the frequency domain. Using higher order natural frequencies, two enhancement procedures for the detection method are devised and applied theoretically.

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In a contemporary discussion on the undersirable effects of architecture upon the natural landscape, our attention often centers around a speculated form of architecture which we tend to describe tentatively as an 'ecological architecture' or as one that is totally benign in its relations with nature. We might ask what is an ecological architecture? The dissertation sets out to define these terms and to develop a theoretical framework for design. Our research objectives are as follows: 1. Our initial objectives are to derive a set of fundamental premises. The intention is to provide ourselves with a context with which a concept of ecological architect, can be based. Because of the conflicting opinions that exist on the subject matter, only by agreeing upon a common set of fundamental premises can a concerted approach be possible. (This is examined in Chapters 2 and 3). 2. Secondly, our objectives are to derive a framework for approaching design. This should not only cohesively unify all the pertinent ang.' related areas of study, but also provide the designer with a firm theoretical standpoint from "Which to approach the design of the built environment. Such a framework should be able to be used to analyse the impact that a proposed design might have before it is built. (The framework is described in detail in Chapter 4). Each of the framework' s structural components is discussed and examined in greater detail in Chapters 5 to 8. In Chapter 9 is our conclusion and discussion on the theoretical implications of our research work as a whole and what it might mean in design implementation. Included is an Appendix which contains a review of literature Literature is derived from a number of sources that we have found to be pertinent to this area of research. It is howeverr not exhaustive nor can it be exhaustive since the sources are diverse. The appendix serves as an indicator of the sources of literature for further development of this study.

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Zur Festlegung der für die Brandbekämpfung der Feuerwehr erforderlichen Löschwassermenge im Genehmigungsprozess von Sonderbauten existieren weltweit unterschiedliche Berechnungsansätze. Neben einfachen Verhältnisformeln und komplexeren Berechnungsmodellen wurden im 20. Jahrhundert auch mehrere großformatige Untersuchungen nach Großbränden durchgeführt. In Deutschland werden durch die Dienststellen nur teilweise Berechnungen hierzu durchgeführt, wobei eine einheitliche Herangehensweise dazu nicht erkennbar ist. Die Ergebnisse der wichtigsten und für Deutschland relevantesten Berechnungsmethoden und Untersuchungen werden in dieser Arbeit dargestellt und anhand von Muster-Gebäuden evaluiert und diskutiert. Die Mittelwerte und Funktionen aus den Einzel-Ergebnissen der betrachteten Faktoren führen zu einer universell anwendbaren Verhältnisformel. Die beschriebene Formel wird auf bereits existierende Gebäude und reale Bauvorhaben angewandt, um die Anwendbarkeit und Reproduzierbarkeit der Aus-sagen nachzuweisen. Darüber hinaus werden die gebräuchlichsten Begrifflichkeiten im deutschen Rechtsraum, wie „Grund- und Objektschutz“ beleuchtet und die Rollen der Wasserversorgungsunternehmen und der Gemeinden im rechtlichen Kontext beschrieben.

In diesem Forschungsvorhaben wurde untersucht, welche rechnerische Zuverlässigkeit bezüglich dauerhaftigkeitsrelevanter Eigenschaften bei Wasserbauwerken, Brücken-/Ingenieurbauwerken und Hochbauten nach den zugrunde gelegten Regelwerken erreicht wurden. Die „Bemessung“ auf Dauerhaftigkeit der Bauwerke erfolgte während der Planung nach deskriptiven Vorgaben (Hochbauten nach DIN EN 1045:2001, Wasserbauwerke nach ZTV W LB 215 und Brücken-/Ingenieurbauwerke nach ZTV-ING).