In order to improve people’s living situation and decrease the use of fossil energy in the world, researchers’ attention has been focused on the energy side of the building sector. Especially single family houses in the Nordic countries Norway, Sweden and Finland have been given attention in the Increasing Energy Efficiency in Buildings (IEEB) project, with the purpose of increasing energy efficiency in buildings. In the project presented in this report, this has been studied by simulating a low energy single family house at different locations in Scandinavia, and applying the various national building codes to the house to see how it would match the energy requirements. The simulated locations included the different climates in Helsinki, Oulu (Finland), Oslo, Narvik (Norway), Piteå, Umeå, Karlstad, Borlänge, Stockholm and Kalmar (Sweden). The house fulfilled almost all the national energy requirements with more or less margin because of its low energy use. A comparison with actual measurements of the house did not match as good, because of uncertainty in measurement methods and climate aspects. The national building codes and climate in the Nordic countries turned out to be similar enough for a coordination of the building codes to be possible in the future.

Master of Science / Department of Architectural Engineering and Construction Science / Kimberly W. Kramer / Wind pressures affect buildings of all shapes and sizes. Standards and codes have been published that instruct engineers and designers how to account for the wind loads interacting with structures. As further research on wind interaction with buildings is completed, more provisions and requirements are added to the codes and standards. At what point do the provision modifications and additions become more complicated than they need to be for a safe, effective building design? This report evaluates the progression of wind provisions through codes and standards since the early 1900’s. Then a detailed review of the current ASCE 7-05 Analytical Procedure design provisions is completed. Specifically, this report focuses on mid-rise structures 60 feet to 180 feet in height, located in the Midwest region of the United States. Following this in depth review of the ASCE 7 Standard, two studies are carried out. The studies were developed in order to assess the following two ideas: Have the wind load provisions become too complicated? Should there be a simplified procedure for mid-rise buildings?

abstract: Due to extreme summer temperatures that regularly reach 122°F (50°C), cooling energy requirements have been responsible for 70% of peak demand and 45% of total electricity consumption in Kuwait. It is estimated that 50%-60% of electric power is consumed by the residential sector, mostly in detached villas. This study analyzes the potential impact of energy efficiency measures (EEM) and renewable energy (RE) measures on the electric energy requirements of an existing villa built in 2004. Using architectural plans, interview data, and the eQUEST building energy simulation tool, a building energy model (BEM) was developed for a villa calibrated with hourly energy use data for the year 2014. Although the modeled villa consumed less energy than an average Kuwaiti villa of the same size, 26% energy reductions were still possible under compliance with 2018 building codes. Compliance with 2010 and 2014 building codes, however, would have increased energy use by 19% and 3% respectively. Furthermore, survey data of 150 villas was used to generate statistics on rooftop solar area availability. Accordingly, it was found that 78% of the survey sample’s average total rooftop area was not suitable for rooftop solar systems due to shading and other obstacles. The integration of a solar canopy circumvents this issue and also functions as a shading device for outdoor activities and as a protective cover for AC units and water tanks. Combining the highest modeled EEMs and RE measures on the villa, the energy use intensity (EUI) would be reduced to 15 kWh/m2/year from a baseline value of 127 kWh/m2/year, close to net zero. Finally, it was determined that EEMs were able to reduce the entire demand profile whereas RE measures were most effective at reducing demand around mid-day hours. In future studies, more effort should be spent on collecting hourly data from multiple villas to assist in the development of a detailed hourly bottom-up residential energy modeling methodology. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering 2020

The interplay of forces behind globalisation, promoting trade and prosperity, and the desire for offshore trade are not fully understood. This is further complicated by the role of the political economy, global sovereignty versus national boundaries, economic status of a country and community needs. The literature found that 'one size does not fit all'. Globalisation results in the consideration of global similarities such as standards, harmonisation of laws, international codes and the growth of international organisations. In addition, there is international pressure to adopt 'performance-based' designs by members of the World Trade Organization countries in order to promote trade. This research examines the development of performance-based building codes at the international level, its benefits and issues and whether it will achieve a positive impact on trade for the Australian construction industry.

Simple but still realistic physical models suitable for structural design of flat concrete plates and column footings with respect to punching are presented. Punching of a flat plate is assumed to occur when the concrete compression strain at the column edge due to the bending moment in the slab reaches a critical value that is considerably lower than the generally accepted ultimate compression strain 0.0035 for one-way structures loaded in bending. In compact slabs such as column footings the compression strength of the inclined strut from the load to the column is governing instead. Both the strain limit and the inclined stress limit display a size-effect, i.e. the limit values decrease with increasing depth of the compression zone in the slab. Due respect is also paid to increasing concrete brittleness with increasing compression strength. The influence of the bending moment means that flat plates with rectangular panels display a lower punching capacity than flat plates with square panels – a case that is not recognized by current design codes. As a consequence, punching shall be checked for each of the two reinforcement directions separately if the bending moments differ. Since the theory can predict the punching load as well as the ultimate deflection of test specimens with good precision, it can also treat the case where a bending moment, so called unbalanced moment, is transferred from the slab to the column. This opens up for a safer design than with the prevailing method. It is proposed that the column rotation in relation to the slab shall be checked instead of the unbalanced moment for both gravity loading and imposed story drift due to lateral loads. However, the risk for punching failure is a great disadvantage with flat plates. The failure is brittle and occurs without warning in the form of extensive concrete cracking and increased deflection. Punching at one column may even initiate punching at adjacent columns as well, which would cause progressive collapse of the total structure. A novel reinforcement concept is therefore presented that gives flat plates a very ductile behaviour, which eliminates the risk for punching failure. The performance is verified by tests with monotonic as well as cyclic loading. / QC 20100929

Aunque el hormigón de alta resistencia se está utilizando de manera creciente en los últimos años para la construcción de estructuras, la norma Española vigente, la Instrucción EHE, sólo abarca hormigones de resistencias características a compresión inferiores a 50 MPa. El aumento de resistencia del hormigón está directamente asociado a una mejora en la mayoría de sus prestaciones, especialmente de la durabilidad, aunque también produce un aumento en la fragilidad y una disminución de la rugosidad de las fisuras, lo que afecta de forma muy especial a la resistencia a cortante.El objetivo principal de este trabajo es contribuir al avance del conocimiento del comportamiento frente a la rotura por cortante de vigas de hormigón de alta resistencia. Para ello, y en primer lugar, se ha llevado a cabo una extensa revisión del estado actual del conocimiento de la resistencia a cortante, tanto para hormigón convencional como para hormigón de alta resistencia, así como una profunda investigación de campañas experimentales anteriores. Se ha realizado una campaña experimental sobre vigas de hormigón de alta resistencia sometidas a flexión y cortante. La resistencia a compresión del hormigón de las vigas variaba entre 50 y 87 MPa. Las principales variables de diseño eran la cuantía de armadura longitudinal y transversal. Los resultados obtenidos experimentalmente han sido analizados para estudiar la influencia de las distintas variables en función de la resistencia a compresión del hormigón.Con el objetivo de tener en cuenta, no sólo los resultados de nuestros ensayos, sino también la gran cantidad de información disponible en la bibliografía técnica, se ha preparado una base de datos con vigas de hormigón convencional y de alta resistencia a partir del banco de datos de la Universidad de Illinois. Los resultados empíricos han sido comparados con los cortantes últimos calculados según la Instrucción EHE, las especificaciones AASHTO LRFD, el Código ACI 318-99 y el programa Response-2000, basado en la teoría modificada del campo de compresiones.Se han construido dos Redes Neuronales Artificiales (RNA) para predecir la resistencia a cortante en base a la gran cantidad de resultados experimentales. La principal característica de las RNA es su habilidad para aprender, mediante el ajuste de pesos internos, incluso cuando los datos de entrada y salida presentan un cierto nivel de ruido. Con los resultados de la RNA se ha realizado un análisis paramétrico de cada variable que afecta la resistencia última a cortante.Se han propuesto nuevas expresiones que tienen el cuenta el comportamiento observado para el diseño frente al esfuerzo cortante de vigas tanto de hormigón convencional como de alta resistencia con y sin armadura a cortante, así como una nueva ecuación para la determinación de la armadura mínima a cortante. Las nuevas expresiones presentan resultados que se ajustan mejor a los resultados experimentales que los obtenidos mediante la utilización de las normativas vigentes.Finalmente se han planteado varias sugerencias de futuras líneas de trabajo, que son resultado de la propia evolución del conocimiento sobre el tema de estudio durante el desarrollo de esta tesis. / Although High-Strength Concrete has been increasingly used in the construction industry during the last few years, current Spanish Structural Concrete code of practice (EHE) only covers concrete of strengths up to 50 MPa. An increase in the strength of concrete is directly associated with an improvement in most of its properties, in special the durability, but this also produces an increase in its brittleness and smoother crack surfaces which affects significantly the shear strength. The aim of this research is to enhance the understanding of the behaviour of high-strength concrete beams with and without web reinforcement failing in shear. In order to achieve this objective, an extensive review of the state-of-the-art in shear strength for both normal-strength and high-strength concrete beams was made, as well as in-depth research into previous experimental campaigns.An experimental programme involving the testing of eighteen high-strength beam specimens under a central point load was performed. The concrete compressive strength of the beams at the age of the tests ranged from 50 to 87 MPa. Primary design variables were the amount of shear and longitudinal reinforcement. The results obtained experimentally were analysed to study the influence of those parameters related to the concrete compressive strength.With the aim of taking into account, in addition to the results of our tests, the large amount of information available, a large database was assembled based on the University of Illinois Sheardatabank for normal-strength and high-strength concrete beams. These test results were compared with failure shear strengths predicted by the EHE Code, the 2002 Final Draft of EuroCode 2, the AASHTO LRFD Specifications, the ACI Code 318-99, and Response-2000 program, a computer program based on the modified compression field theory. Furthermore, two Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) were developed to predict the shear strength of reinforced beams based on the database beam specimens. An ANN is a computational tool made up of a number of simple, highly-interconnected processing elements that constitute a network. The main feature of an ANN is its ability to learn, by means of adjusting internal weights, even when the input and output data present a degree of noise. Based on the ANN results, a parametric study was carried out to study the influence of each parameter affecting the failure shear strength.New expressions are proposed, taking into account the observed behaviour for the design of high-strength and normal-strength reinforced concrete beams with and without web reinforcement. A new equation is given for the amount of minimum reinforcement as well. The new expressions correlate with the empirical tests better than any current code of practice.Finally, as a natural corollary to the evolution of our understanding of this field, some recommendations for future studies are made.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:44:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T14:07:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 06918.pdf: 6007370 bytes, checksum: f6ef6e6f5a008b13818a5ead0efc8237 (MD5) / Dissertacao (Mestrado) / IPEN/D / Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares - IPEN/CNEN-SP

Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:44:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T14:07:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 06918.pdf: 6007370 bytes, checksum: f6ef6e6f5a008b13818a5ead0efc8237 (MD5) / Dissertacao (Mestrado) / IPEN/D / Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares - IPEN/CNEN-SP

yes / A simplified strut-and-tie model including size effect based on the crack band theory is proposed to evaluate the shear capacity of deep beams. Concrete struts are idealized as uniformly tapered prismatic members with a stress relief strip whereas horizontal and vertical shear reinforcements are assumed to be an internally statically indeterminate system. The shear transfer mechanism of concrete and shear reinforcement is then driven by using the energy equilibrium in the stress relief strip and crack band zone of concrete struts. The shear capacity predictions of deep beams obtained from the present models are in better agreement with 637 test results than those determined from strut-and-tie models proposed by ACI 318-08, EC-2, and Tan and Cheng. In addition, the trend of the shear capacity of deep beams against different parameters as predicted by the present models has a consistent agreement with that observed from experimental results. In particular, the present model shows that the normalized shear capacity of deep beams is proportional to (h)−0.25, where h = section overall depth.

The majority of building code development and implementation practices are normally connected with the progress of construction community changing awareness, needs and perspectives, advanced technology in construction and new level of knowledge. Unproven practices and the technology of building code development and implementation in case of insufficient and outdated codes, the use of unproven advanced codes of other countries, or the infringement of the existing codes, in most cases, could lead to a large number of shortcomings of minimum requirements of public health, safety and general welfare, and poor quality of buildings. Every aspect of a building code development and implementation practice could be influenced by insufficiencies and infringements in building codes/regulations that could cause buildings failures. Generally, the success of a building code development and implementation practice is directly connected with the involved insufficiencies and infringements in the framework of building code (legal, Administrative, technical, & social), i.e. faults of building code development and implementation should be successfully resolved in order to come to an end of a building project assuring code's objectives (public health, safety and general welfare). One of the early research problems of building code development and implementation practice was conducted by Productivity Commission (2004) where the research organized and categorized the causes of shortcomings of BC according to four main functions of building code, including legal, administrative, technical, and social functions. Productivity Commission Research had been the starting point of research problems of building codes in Kuwait. For the past 20 years, many researchers have high numbers of categories, components and rankings to explain different types of insufficiencies and infringements in building codes/regulations. However, these categories and rankings produce inconsistent and overlapping cause and impact factors. In addition, researchers and practitioners at this point tend to focus on the technical and administrative sides related to the issues of building codes development and implementation, and neglecting the importance of legal and social sides. Legal issues like finding a law to prepare and enforce building codes, cover of insurance companies, building materials testing system, weak regulations related issues, building specifications, and clarity of regulation texts; as well as social issues like community awareness, issuing and enforcing legal court rules, deterrent punishments for violators, violations or cheatings in related issues, all of these were deemed not that critical by most reviewers. The research is specifically concerned with the insufficiencies and infringements in building codes/regulations which cause shortcomings of minimum requirements of public health, safety and general welfare, and how related cause and impact factors are selected and organized. Existing research highlights the need for further researches of how to relate between research and building regulations that are at present. There is evidence that construction industries around the world have little experience in this area (CIB TG37, 2001). The proposal within this research is to address this aspect of the debate by seeking to clarify the role of the four functions of building code; legal, administrative, technical, and social function as a frame of reference that stakeholder parties (building officials, design and construction professionals) might agree with and which should act as the basis for the selection and formation of occurrences of cause factors, and their iv impact on public health, safety and general welfare. The focus on the four functions of building code as a fault (cause) frame of reference potentially leads to a common, practical view of the (multi) dimensionality setting of fault (cause) within which cause factors may be identified and which, we believe, could be grounded across a wide range of practices specifically in this research of building code development and implementation. The research surveyed and examined the opinions of building officials, design and construction professionals. We assess which fault (cause) factors are most likely to occur in building and construction projects; evaluate fault (cause) impact by assessing which fault (cause) factors that building officials, design and construction professionals specifically think are likely to arise in the possibility of shortcomings of minimum requirements of public health, safety and general welfare. The data obtained were processed, analyzed and ranked. By using the EXCEL and SPSS for factor analysis, all the fault (cause) factors were reduced and groups into clusters and components for further correlation analysis. The analysis was able to prove an opinion on fault (cause) likelihood, the impact of the fault (cause) on the objectives of building code. The analysis indicates that it is possible to identify grouping of insufficiencies and infringements in building codes/regulations that is correspondent to the different parts of the framework of building code (legal, Administrative, technical, & social) these suggest three identified groups when viewing cause from the likelihood occurrence and four identified groups and their impact for each building code objective. The evidence related to the impact of building code objectives, view of cause, and provides a stronger view of which components of cause were important compared with cause likelihood. The research accounts for the difference by suggesting that a more selection and formation of cause and impact, offered by viewing cause within the context of a framework of building code, and viewing impact within the context of building code objectives (public health, safety and general welfare) allows those involved in building code development and implementation to have an understandable view of the relationships within cause factors, and between cause and impact factors. It also allows the various cause components and the associated emergent clusters to be more readily identified. The contribution of the research relates to the assessment of cause within a construction that is defined in the context of a fairly broad accepted view of the framework of building code (legal, Administrative, technical, & social). The fault (cause) likelihood construction is based on the building code framework proposed in this research and could facilitates a focus on roles and responsibilities, and allows the coordination and integration of activities for regular development and implementation with the building code goals. This contribution would better enable building officials and code writers to identify and manage faults (causes) as they emerge with BC aspects/parts and more closely reflect building and construction activities and processes and facilitate the fault (cause) administration exercise.