• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.121-125
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• 2015

BIPV system is one of the best ways to harness PV module. The BIPV system not only produces electricity, but also acts as a building envelope. Thus, it has the strong point of increasing the economical efficiency by applying the PV modules to the buildings. Bifacial solar cells can convert solar energy to electrical energy from both sides of the module. In addition, it is designed as 3 busbar layout which is the same with ordinary mono-facial soalr cells. Therefore, many of the module manufacturers can easily produce the bifacial solar cells without changing their manufacturing equipment. Moreover, bifacial BIPV system has much potential in building application by utilizing glass to glass structure. However, the performance of bifacial solar cells depends on a variety of factors, ranging from the back surface to surrounding conditions. Therefore, in order to apply bifacial solar cells to buildings, an analysis of bifacial PV module performance should be carried out that includes a consideration of various design elements, and reflects a wide range of installation conditions. As a result it found that the white insulation reflector type can improve the performance of the bifacial BIPV system by 16%, compared to the black insulation reflector type. The performance of the bifacial BIPV was also shown to be influenced by inclination angle, due to changes in both the amount of radiation captured on the front face and the radiation transmitted to the rear face through the transparent space. In this study is limited design condition and installation condition. Accordingly follow-up researches in this part need to be conducted.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.195-215
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• 2016

Rehabilitation of historical unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings is a priority in many parts of the world, since those buildings are a living part of history and a testament of human achievement of the era of their construction. Many of these buildings are still operational; comprising brittle materials with no reinforcements, with spatially distributed mass and stiffness, they are not encompassed by current seismic assessment procedures that have been developed for other structural types. To facilitate the difficult task of selecting a proper rehabilitation strategy - often restricted by international treaties for non-invasiveness and reversibility of the intervention - and given the practical requirements for the buildings' intended reuse, this paper presents a practical procedure for assessment of seismic demands of URM buildings - mainly historical constructions that lack a well-defined diaphragm action. A key ingredient of the method is approximation of the spatial shape of lateral translation, ${\Phi}$, that the building assumes when subjected to a uniform field of lateral acceleration. Using ${\Phi}$ as a 3-D shape function, the dynamic response of the system is evaluated, using the concepts of SDOF approximation of continuous systems. This enables determination of the envelope of the developed deformations and the tendency for deformation and damage localization throughout the examined building for a given design earthquake scenario. Deformation demands are specified in terms of relative drift ratios referring to the in-plane and the out-of-plane seismic response of the building's structural elements. Drift ratio demands are compared with drift capacities associated with predefined performance limits. The accuracy of the introduced procedure is evaluated through (a) comparison of the response profiles with those obtained from detailed time-history dynamic analysis using a suite of ten strong ground motion records, five of which with near-field characteristics, and (b) evaluation of the performance assessment results with observations reported in reconnaissance reports of the field performance of two neoclassical torsionally-sensitive historical buildings, located in Thessaloniki, Greece, which survived a major earthquake in the past.

• KIEAE Journal
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.15-22
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• 2014

Among the various building envelope elements, the glass area takes up the largest portion in the office building design. However, a large area of glass can cause problems such as excessive solar radiation, thermal comfort, and glare. Thus it is important to install the glass area to an appropriate level, and control solar radiation and inflow of daylight with blind devices. This study aims to improve the visual performance of the work plane through the automatic control of the venetian blinds. A total of eight kinds of control strategies were chosen; Case 1 does not control the blinds, Case 2 with the blind slats fixed at the angle of 0 degree, Case 3 to 6 using the existing blind control programs, and Case 7 and 8 with improved blind control. Case 3 with 90 degrees had the best energy performance, but the average indoor illuminance was 113lux, which is below the standards. Cases 4 and 5 showed higher levels of interior daylight illuminance with the average of 281lux and 403lux respectively. However, the fixed angles may have difficulties controlling excessive direct sunlight coming into the room and may cause glare. Cases 6 and 7 used sun tracking angle control and cut-off angle control, and the average interior illuminance was measured 250lux and 385lux respectively. Case 8 used the cut-off angle control in an hourly manner, satisfying the standard illuminance of 400lux with an average interior illuminance of 561lux. It was evaluated to be the best method to control direct solar radiation and to guarantee proper level of interior illumination.