Energy Efficient Facades for Buildings

Assembly of typical wall with Translucent Concrete Facade

Assembly of typical wall with Translucent Concrete Facade

 Research by:

Aashish Ahuja
Lighting consumes a substantial amount of energy in buildings that has made it imperative to depend more on daylighting.                                                    My research tries to computationally assess the qualities of a novel light-channeling facade subsystem called ‘Translucent Concrete’ (TC).

Computational model of Translucent concrete (TC) panel

Computational model of Translucent concrete (TC) panel

 

I conduct various simulations on my model, starting with:

1) Ray Tracing to estimate the performance of the TC system during the day.

Ray tracing through optical fibbers

Ray tracing through optical fibers

 

2) Heat transmission analysis to calculate the thermal performance of TC and avenues for improvement.

Heat analysis of TC panel (click for video)

Heat analysis of TC panel (click for video)

Heat analysis of TC panel with cenospheres (air globules) (Click for video)

Heat analysis of TC panel with cenospheres (air globules) (Click for video)

 

3) Exploring nonimaging concentrator technology to supplement the TC subsystem.

Some examples of nonimaging concentrators

Some examples of nonimaging concentrators (click for video)

 

Publications:

  1. Ahuja, A., Casquero-Modrego, N. and Mosalam, K.M. “Evaluation of Translucent Concrete using ETTV-based approach”, International Conference on Building Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Technologies (ICBEST), 31st Aug – 1st Sep 2015, Singapore
  2. Ahuja, A., Mosalam, K.M. and Zohdi, T.I. “An Illumination Model For Translucent Concrete Using RADIANCE”, 14th International Conference of the International Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA), 7th-9th Dec 2015, Hyderabad, India.
  3. Ahuja, A., Mosalam, K.M. and Zohdi [2014], “Computational Modeling of Transclucent Concrete Panels,” ASCE, Journal of Architectural Engineering.
  4. Mosalam, K.M., N. Casquero-Modrego, J. Armengou, A. Ahuja, T.I. Zohdi and B. Huang, “Anidolic Day-Light Concentrator in Structural Building Envelope,” First Annual International Conference on Architecture and Civil Engineering (ACE 2013), 18-19 March 2013, Singapore.

Patent:

  1. Mosalam, K.M., Casquero-Modrego, N., Ahuja, Aashish, Huang, Baofeng “BRIGHT: Building With Radiant And Insulated Green Harvesting Technology”, Tech ID: 25071 / UC Case 2015-159-0,

Fun Stuff:

  1. Construction of TC panels