Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1982. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 116-118). / With the growing awareness of the rapid disappearance of the global fuel resources, energy conservation became an issue of general concern. Prompted by the results of studies done in the 1970's--which show a marked increase of energy consumption per square foot of office space over the years, as well as differences in consumption between buildings of different periods -- this thesis looks at the features that determine the considerable variation in energy consumption in office buildings from the beginning of the century to our days. An overview of the historic evolution of the highrise offices presents the events that influenced the change in energy performance.The elements that determine the energy use in a building, like its orientation, exterior envelope, interior design, and mechanical systems, are individually analyzed to present a detailed picture of their role. Their characteristics in the periods before and after the second world war are then compared, showing how they determined the energy performance of buildings of the respective periods. / by Nora Anca Niculin. / M.Arch.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1981. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING. / Bibliography : leaf 184. / by David Wayne Payton. / M.S.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1982. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography: p. 104-109. / There are two distinguishable parts to this thesis. Part I is a discourse on architectural representation. It defines the theoretical boundary for Part II, research on a particular spatial representation system, physical models, and their use as a design aid. In Part I, representation is discussed as it pertains to the design process. An opinion is built around the excessive 'visual' nature of the topic. The many types of representation systems are described. Finally, a brief historical survey, as well as two current design processes provide insight into applications of these systems. Part II is the documentation of a research project that attempts to visualize physical phenomena (energy behavior) as they act on physical models representative of architectural form. A statement is put forth postulating a design approach that addresses energy behavior in a 'qualitative' sense based on its comprehension through these established visualization techniques. A procedure for testing physical phenomena on models is described and finally, the documentation of such tests for wind, solar shading, convection and light are presented. A conclusion forecasts potential applications of this research. The multi-disciplinary exploration of visual communications and energy conscious design is addressed in the content, as well as the communicative technique and medium of this presentation. The author is responsible for reproducing all the images in this book. Reproductions from other sources were copied photographically. In its original form several pages were printed in offset. This process was completed entirely by the author, from original photograph to pasteup, printing preparation and running the press. An experimental video production is being prepared as well. / by Donald Alberto. / M.S.

Thesis (M.Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1981. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography: p. 202-205. / Until now, passive solar energy has been overlooked as a viable alternative for home heating in urban subsidized housing. Rather ironically, in housing whose residents could most benefit from the use of solar energy, such concepts and technologies are not utilized. This thesis demonstrates how passive solar heating and energy conscious design can be economically implemented in low- and moderate-income subsidized housing. The research and design work presented explain the well-integrated system of natural environmental tempering that includes passive solar heating, natural daylighting, natural ventilation and energy conservation. A crucial aspect of the thesis is the method of dollar-for-dollar tradeoffs that is used to keep the cost of the natural environmental tempering components within the strict budget constraints of subsidized housing. Also, the housing is designed with careful attention paid to the needs of the inhabitants. Thus, in addition to the energy concerns, the design reflects new attitudes toward subsidized housing. The resulting solar architecture is a significant answer to the need for economical public housing that allows low-income urban residents to benefit from the sun's abundant energy. / by Karen M. Duncan. / M.Arch.

Based on the above scheme, we propose a number of solutions to reduce the computational complexity and communication cost. To reduce the computational complexity, we propose to aggregate the local data and transit data and route them with a single set of routing variables. To reduce the communication overhead, a different smoothing function is proposed that only requires the information of a set of bottleneck nodes. The optimality conditions are derived and a distributed algorithm is designed accordingly. Simulation results illustrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed solution. / Sleeping scheduling is another approach to save energy consumption for sensor networks. The basic idea is to schedule the duty-cycles of sensor nodes such that off-duty sensors are turned off as long as the network functionality can be maintained by working nodes. For applications whereby coordination of sleeping among sensors is not possible or inconvenient, random sleeping is the only option. We present the Asynchronous Random Sleeping (ARS) scheme whereby sensors (i) do not need to synchronize with each other, and (ii) do not need to coordinate their wakeup patterns. The stationary coverage probability and the expected coverage periods for ARS are derived. For surveillance application, we derive in addition the detection probability and detection delay distribution. We find that the expected detection delay of asynchronous random sleeping is smaller than that of the synchronous random sleeping. / This thesis is focused on the design and analysis of energy conservation methods for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Unlike traditional wireless networks, sensor nodes in WSNs are collaborating towards a common mission. The failure of some sensor nodes may cause significant topological changes and loss of information at the target region. Therefore, network lifetime is the primary objective for designing energy conservation solutions for WSNs. / We address the energy conservation problem from the aspects of maximum lifetime routing, data aggregation and sleeping scheduling. We first propose a data aggregated maximum lifetime routing scheme for wireless sensor networks. We adopt a data aggregation model that decouples the routing of local data and transit data. The objective is to jointly optimize data aggregation and routing so that the network lifetime can be maximized. A recursive smoothing method is adopted to overcome the nondifferentiability of the objective function. We derive the necessary and sufficient conditions for achieving the optimality of the smoothing function and design a distributed gradient algorithm accordingly. We show that the proposed scheme can significantly reduce the data traffic and improve the network lifetime. The distributed algorithm can converge to the optimal value efficiently under all network configurations. / Hua Cunqing. / "June 2006." / Adviser: Tak-Shing Yum. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-03, Section: B, page: 1825. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 120-131). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

Community energy has drawn interest from the general public, policy makers and researchers in the UK over the last few years. Community energy projects, such as energy saving measures and renewable energy projects, are usually organised by civil society groups rather than commercial businesses. This DPhil research approaches community energy as local grassroots innovation and compares its development in two different countries, Finland and the UK. Key research question is: Why and how do community energy projects develop and how do they contribute to niche development? The thesis uses Sustainability Transitions studies literature, especially literature on Strategic Niche Management (SNM), as a theoretical framing, and empirical in-depth analysis of four community energy projects, two in the UK and two in Finland. The research examines how community energy projects develop in ‘niches'. Research findings highlight that motivations for projects include monetary savings, energy savings and climate change. Projects are developed by pre-existing community groups or groups that have come together to develop an energy project. Local embedding of community energy projects to each project's individual circumstances helps successful project delivery. Pre-existing skills and tacit knowledge such as the ability to seek information and fill in funding applications can aid success. Engagement with key stakeholders further shapes projects' aims and objectives. Community energy projects benefit from a clear leader who works with a supportive team. There is evidence of projects networking at the local and national level in the UK, while in Finland networking remains limited to the local area and projects often develop in isolation. Furthermore, there is a clear lack of active intermediary organisations in the Finnish context. Policy discourse at the government level can aid the attractiveness of community energy, while continued funding support encourages more people to get involved in projects in their local areas.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1979. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Includes bibliographical references. / The electric utilities in the United States are faced with continued rapid growth in electrical demand. The traditional response to growth in demand has been the expansion of generating capacity. However, economic, environmental, and scheduling constraints will combine to make adequate expansion difficult, if not impossible, in the 1980's. This thesis examines load management as an alternative to the proliferation of generating plants. This path is illustrated by the development of an air conditioning system designed to displace power consumption in commercial buildings from peak to off-peak periods. The urban domestic utilities face their peak loads during the summer air conditioning season. The displacement of daytime air conditioning will therefore reduce the utilities' annual peak load. The proposed air conditioning system uses off-peak power, and conventional mechanical equipment, to recharge a thermal energy storage system. The thermal storage medium is a sodium sulfate-based phase change material (PCM) enclosed in small thin bags. These bags are distributed throughout the ceiling plane of the building; supported by special ceiling tiles. At night, the PCM is charged by chilling the plenum space; during the day, the PCM, in direct contact with the occupied space, removes sensible heat gains by melting. System components are described by their programmatic requirements. The performance of the proposed off-peak cooling system was simulated under a variety of conditions involving interior zone commercial office spaces. It was found, using thermal comfort criteria, that the system performed well using a PCM set point temperature of 67°F. Under the operating parameters established, the simulations indicated that the energy flow rates were adequate for successful system performance. Finally, it was determined that the system can provide immediate savings through customer demand leveling and increased chiller efficiency. However, the major potential for savings will relate to anticipated utility incentives for off-peak electrical use. / Charles C. Benton / M.Arch.

Thesis. 1977. M.Arch.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography : leaves 98-100. / by James S. Day. / M.Arch.

Este trabalho aborda dois assuntos básicos da construção de um modelo sustentável de desenvolvimento: a minimização de resíduos sólidos urbanos e a conservação de energia. Enquanto a minimização de resíduos sólidos urbanos se relaciona com a utilização racional de recursos materiais e contribui para solucionar o problema da escassez de áreas para deposição final de lixo dos grandes centros urbanos, a conservação de energia contribui para compensar, até certa extensão, a falta de investimentos no setor elétrico para o pleno atendimento da demanda, sem restringir o crescimento econômico do país. Existem diversas maneiras de se tratar adequadamente os resíduos sólidos urbanos. Por exemplo, podemos citar a compostagem de material orgânico, a reciclagem de materiais, a incineração de lixo e a redução na fonte. Neste trabalho, cada uma destas técnicas é explicada com a relacionada à conservação de energia, com ênfase à demonstrar a necessidade de uma abordagem sistêmica desses temas, no contexto da busca do desenvolvimento sustentável. / This paper focuses two topics related to the construction of a sustainable development model: the minimization of urban solid wastes and the energy conservation. The minimization of urban wastes is related to the efficient utilization of resource materials and contributes to solve the problem of shortage of available garbage disposal areas in great urban centers. Energy conservation, on the other hand, can be an alternative, when the lack of investment in the electrical sector would otherwise restrict the continued economic growth of the country. There are many ways of adequately handling urban solid wastes. For example, one can list the compost of organic materials, the recycling of materials, the incineration of materials and the reduction of the amount of waste generated. In this work, each of these techniques is evaluated and connected to the conservation of energy, in a attempt to show that it is necessary an integrated consideration of these to construct a to sustainable development model.

The motivation for the research described in this thesis is the imperative to minimise energy consumption of buildings in the urban environment. A comprehensive approach to analysing energy usage involves the whole life cycle of buildings and infrastructure including embodied energy consumption. Embodied energy represents all of the energy consumed in the production of building materials and components, as well as the energy used to assemble them into the built form. This thesis describes the development and application of a model which spatially depicts embodied energy as a basis for undertaking more holistic analyses of urban energy consumption. The need for comprehensive analyses of energy consumption is initially explored. Such analyses would enable more favourable energy outcomes to be achieved when making decisions about urban planning and development. Research on the value of representing energy usage in a spatial format is reviewed and the case is made for modelling the embodied energy as a contribution to the broader understanding of urban energy consumption. This thesis concentrates on residential areas of the urban environment. The model for spatially representing the embodied energy consumption of residential areas has three components which are embodied energy theory, property register data and geographical information software. A methodology is described which commences with hybrid embodied energy coefficients, integrates these with property register data for a metropolitan area and displays the results using GIS techniques in the form of maps. The model is general but developed using information pertaining to the Adelaide metropolitan area and tested using data from both Adelaide and Sydney. To show that the model can usefully contribute to life cycle energy analyses in the urban environment, it is applied to three case studies involving current urban planning issues involving the densification of dwellings in cities and the redevelopment of older residential areas. These show that such analyses can represent embodied energy spatially and with sufficient accuracy to inform urban planning and development decisions aimed at reducing overall energy usage. In summary, the research has extended knowledge on the embodied energy of the built form by focusing on residential areas which include urban infrastructure rather than just individual buildings. It has provided new insights into the significance of embodied energy of the existing built form by considering it as a ‘sunk cost’ which may be partially recovered and form part of the energy flows in the urban environment. The mapping of embodied energy of the existing built form also offers the potential for quantifying resources which can be re-used to modify total energy consumption of new developments. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1311795 / Thesis(Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design, 2008