Browsing by Author "Levermore, G. J."
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Item Metadata only The design reference year – a new approach to testing a building in more extreme weather using UKCP09 projections(SAGE, 2012) Watkins, R.; Levermore, G. J.; Parkinson, J. B.Current practice in building design is to assess a building’s performance using average or typical weather, a test reference year (TRY), and then to see how it performs when ‘stressed’, using a design summer year (DSY). The DSY is an actual year of hourly data which has the third warmest summer in 20 years’ summers. One of the problems with the DSY method is that it does not explicitly take into account solar radiation, or humidity, nor when more extreme weather occurs – it is selected solely on the mean six monthly temperature from April to September. A DSY may actually be cloudier than the average weather of a TRY. This article proposes an alternative approach using a new type of design reference year (DRY) consisting of a year formed from individual more extreme weather months. The DRY is used in simulating the performance of a building and to identify a single critical month for over-heating, or maximum cooling load. This article compares the characteristics of the DSY and proposed DRY using future projected weather data from UKCIP. Practical applications: Building designers are increasingly required by their clients to demonstrate how a proposed building will perform under a future rather than historical climate. This article describes a method of processing the latest future climate projections (UK Climate Impacts Programme’s (UKCIP’s) CP09 data released in June 2009) and generating a design reference year (DRY) for use in building simulation programmes. The DRY is proposed as a replacement for the design summer year (DSY), which has a number of limitations.Item Metadata only Designing urban spaces and buildings to improve sustainability and quality of life in a warmer world(Elsevier, 2008-12) Smith, C.; Levermore, G. J.It is in cities that the negative impacts of a warming climate will be felt most strongly. The summer time comfort and well-being of the urban population will become increasingly compromised under future scenarios for climate change and urbanisation. In contrast to rural areas, where night-time relief from high daytime temperatures occurs as heat is lost to the sky, the city environment stores and traps heat and offers little respite from high temperatures. This urban heat island effect is responsible for temperature differences of up to 7°C between cities and the country in the UK. We already have experience of the potential hazards of these higher temperatures. The majority of heat-related fatalities during the summer of 2003 were in urban areas. This means that the cooling of the urban environment is a high priority for urban planners and designers. Proven ways of doing this include altering the urban microclimate by modifying its heat absorption and emission, for example through urban greening, the use of high-reflectivity materials, and by increasing openness to allow cooling winds. Buildings themselves can also deliver improved comfort and higher levels of sustainability by taking advantage of exemplary facade, glazing and ventilation designs. In addition, changed behaviour by building occupants can help keep urban areas cool. The technology to reduce the future vulnerability of city dwellers to thermal discomfort is already largely in existence. But there is a need for complementary policy and planning commitments to manage its implementation, especially in existing buildings and urban areas.Item Metadata only Estimating spatial and temporal patterns of urban anthropogenic heat fluxes for UK cities: the case of Manchester(Springer, 2009) Smith, C.; Lindley, S.; Levermore, G. J.A model is proposed for determining the temporal and spatial patterns of anthropogenic heat fluxes in UK urban areas. It considers buildings, traffic, and metabolic heat flux sources and has been evaluated to a good accuracy against alternative data for the Greater Manchester area in the UK. Results are presented at spatial resolution of 200 × 200 m although the model itself is scalable depending on data availability. In this paper, results are generated using a set of urban morphology units so that detailed and time-consuming accounting of individual building and road emissions is not required. The model estimates a mean heat emission of 6.12 Wm-2 across Greater Manchester, with values in the region of 10 Wm-2 for non central urbanized areas and 23 Wm-2 in city center areas. Despite this difference, the results are not described by a simple distance decay function, as has been reported for other cities, due to the influence of satellite towns and the influence of the road network. Buildings are the dominant emitter, contributing some 60% of total emissions across the city compared to around 32% for road traffic and 8% for metabolic sources.Item Metadata only An examination of UKCIP02 and UKCP09 solar radiation data sets for the UK climate related to their use in building design(SAGE, 2011) Tham, Y.; Muneer, Tariq; Levermore, G. J.; Chow, D.Item Metadata only Fine-scale spatial temperature patterns across a UK conurbation(Springer, 2011) Smith, C. L.; Webb, A.; Levermore, G. J.; Lindley, S. J.; Beswick, K.The public health implications of a warming urban environment mean that appropriate action by planners, designers and health workers will be necessary to minimise risk under future climate scenarios. Data at an appropriate spatial scale are required by user groups in order to identify key areas of vulnerability. Thermal mapping of a UK urban conurbation was carried out during the summers of 2007 and 2008 with the aim of providing high spatial resolution temperature data. The air temperature results showed an average daytime (night time) urban–rural thermal contrast of 3°C (5°C) on summer days (nights) with ideal urban heat island (UHI) conditions. The intensity of the daytime surface temperature heat island was found to exceed 10°C. The measured data were used to derive an empirical model of spatial temperature patterns based upon characteristics of land use, distance from urban centre and building geometry. This model can be used to provide sub-kilometre resolution temperature data which are required by decision makers and can provide a mechanism for downscaling climate model output.Item Metadata only Generation of typical weather data using the ISO Test Reference Year (TRY) method for major cities of South Korea(Elsevier, 2010-04) Lee, Kwanho; Yoo, H.; Levermore, G. J.Computer simulation of buildings and solar energy systems is being used increasingly in energy assessments and design. Simulation often requires hourly weather data. Such data sets are the Test Reference Years (TRYs), Typical Meteorological Year (TMY) and Weather Year for Energy Calculations (WYEC). Typical weather data consists of 8760 values of various selected meteorological parameters such as ambient temperature, solar radiation, relative humidity and wind velocity and are originally derived from long-term data. This paper discusses methods of selecting typical weather data, the possibility of using the cloud cover data instead of daily global radiation and describes the selection of ISO Test Reference Year (TRY) for major cities of South Korea. The ISO-15927 procedure and algorithms are explained in detail and the Finkelstein–Schafer statistic, the basic selector statistic explained. ISO TRYs for the major cities of South Korea are derived from 20 years of meteorological data recorded during the period 1986–2005. A comparison is made between the 7 sites demonstrating the link between dry-bulb temperature, solar radiation and latitude.Item Metadata only Influence of display cabinet cooling on performance of supermarket buildings(Sage, 2013-06-13) Hill, F.; Edwards, R.; Levermore, G. J.Item Metadata only Limitations of the CIBSE design summer year approach for delivering representative near-extreme summer weather condition(Sage, 2013-06-13) Levermore, G. J.; Jentsch, M. F.; Parkinson, J. B.; Eames, M. E.Item Metadata only A low-order canyon model to estimate the influence of canyon shape on the maximum urban heat island effect(SAGE, 2012-01-18) Levermore, G. J.; Cheung, H. K. WA simple mathematical model of an urban canyon is developed. The canyon model consists of horizontal and vertical slabs providing thermal storage for heat and absorption of and shielding from solar radiation and long wave radiation to the sky. The model is compared to a horizontal slab in a rural location to examine the effect of the canyon shape. The results show the same trend as measurements by others, with increasing urban heat island (UHI) effect with increasing canyon aspect ratio. The model is then used to determine the maximum UHI effect by producing a simple algebraic equation. This compares well with measurements in Greater Manchester of canyon and rural temperatures although some empirical adjustments are required. The strong influence of cloud cover is shown by the model and measurements as are the canyon shape and the ground temperature. Practical applications: The model is simple and developed in terms applicable to building services engineers, using ventilation rates through the canyon. It also does not require more than the standard weather data available in a CIBSE Test Reference Year or a Design Summer Year. From this model, the UHI effect can be developed to adjust the data from a rural site to that of an urban and city centre site. This is useful for building designers to take account of the UHI effect which they cannot do at present. This would also be useful for UKCP09 data which have been released.Item Metadata only Micro wind turbine performance under real weather conditions in urban environment(SAGE, 2011-08) Glass, A; Levermore, G. J.The aim of this article is to evaluate the performance of micro wind turbines in a built-up environment. For this purpose, five independent micro wind turbine systems, consisting of two distinctly different models, were tested and evaluated under real life conditions over a period of 12 months. This article provides an overview of the experimental set-up used to test the two different micro wind turbines and then goes on to present the basic background theory for horizontal axis micro wind turbines and the variation of coefficient of performance with wind speed. The wind potentials at the test site were assessed to determine the theoretical outputs of the turbines which were compared with the measured outputs over a year. The measured outputs were disappointingly low. One reason for this is turbulence, for which directional turbulence (lateral turbulence) has been shown to be a key indicator, better than the standard wind speed (longitudinal) turbulence. Another factor is the inverter efficiency and power consumption, which is not negligible. Finally the theoretical paybacks under the 2010 Feed-in Tariffs were calculated along with estimated carbon savings. Practical application: Renewables such as wind turbines are increasingly being designed and installed to help achieve lower carbon buildings. The output of micro turbines, however, can be disappointing due to lateral turbulence and inverter consumptions. These factors are explained so that designers can be aware and assess the likely outputs more accurately.Item Metadata only A review of the IPCC Assessment Report Four, Part 1: the IPCC process and greenhouse gas emission trends from buildings worldwide(SAGE, 2008-11) Levermore, G. J.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (IPCC), Fourth Assessment Report, AR4, Climate Change 2007 consists of three volumes based on the work of three IPCC Working Groups (WGs). WG1 considered the scientific basis of climate change and what the climate models are showing. WG2 considered the consequences of climate change and possible adaptation to it. WG3 considered how the climate change could be mitigated. This paper briefly outlines the history of the IPCC, its purpose and outputs, including the AR4 and its relation to the Kyoto Protocol, and the IPCC authoring process. The paper then reviews the trends in carbon emissions, especially from the built environment (which are a major source of greenhouse gas, GHG, emissions in the world), and the potential mitigation reductions in carbon emissions that are considered possible and the scenarios on which they are based. Practical application: Climate change is an important topic for building services engineers, resulting in the UK in the new, performance-based Building Regulations Part L. This paper outlines the history and relevance of the IPCC for building services engineers as well as reviewing the world trends in carbon emissions from buildings and the future scenarios on which they are based. The paper emphasises the importance of buildings and building services in the context of climate change.Item Metadata only Simulating urban heat island effects with climate change on a Manchester house(SAGE, 2012) Lee, Susan E.; Levermore, G. J.This article presents a methodology for determining the internal temperatures of a post-1919 mid-terrace house for the present-day and a future (2050) climate. The Meteorological Office, Hadley Centre regional climate model has been run with urban parameterisation and an improved land-surface scheme with urban heat island forcing and a weather generator to quantify the effect of the urban heat island. Manchester city dry-bulb air temperatures are shown to be of the order of 4 K higher than those for the present-day under a UKCP09 medium emissions scenario. Extreme summer temperature data (99% percentile) are used to produce a cooling design day for use in a building simulation program.1 Loft and wall insulation decreases internal air temperatures by up to 17% and low e glazing with louvres by up to 8%. Internal temperatures for a 2050 climate will exceed existing Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers thresholds. Practical Application: Climate change is an important subject for both the building industry and local authorities. Climate change scenarios produced by the Hadley Centre General Circulation Models (GCM) have been downscaled to the local level for use in a building simulation model.1 This article demonstrates a technique that enables data from a GCM to be used within a building simulation program1 for an urban environment. It also examines the implications of the combined effect of the urban heat island and climate change on the adaptation options available to designers and planners for existing and future buildings.