Sustainable construction

The latest publications in this offer are:

• April 10, 2025

  BE9020

  Energy management in buildings

  Current environmental constraints make it imperative to strictly control energy in buildings. This chapter presents the basics needed to understand the issues and phenomena related to the use of energy in buildings. Several technical approaches are then reviewed, so as to concretely explain some solutions contributing to this control, emphasizing the approach inherent in the implementation of each of these solutions. Regulatory aspects (regularly updated) are finally presented, in order to contextualize the techniques presented previously.

• February 10, 2025

  C8103

  Dynamic Energy Simulation (DES) – Controlling energy consumption

  Our society is increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of our activities. We now know that this impact is mainly due to energy overconsumption. Buildings, which are our primary concern, are responsible for 25% of greenhouse gas emissions and 40% of energy consumption in France. Consequently, tools have been created to design low-carbon and energy-efficient building projects. These thermal modeling tools are different from regulatory tools, and are named dynamic thermal simulation tools. These tools are also used to ensure energy results based on actual consumption.

• September 10, 2024

  C8124

  Bio-sourced building materials and temporary carbon storage

  Nowadays, in the research of long-term solutions to limit the earth global warming due to green-house gas (GHG), the construction and building sector can play an important role. The setting of bio-based materials in new buildings or for renovation seems a reliable way of sustainability and tempo-rary carbon storage.This paper aims at analyzing the physical phenomena and issues, by taking into account the moment and duration of the GHG storage and emissions: which type of bio-based material: agro-ressource or wood ; which lifespan for the buildings and the materials ; amount of carbon uptake in each plant, dissolution kinetics of GHG; which end of life scenario.

• July 21, 2021

  C8120 Review

  Comfort modeling in open and semi-open spaces

  Modeling comfort in semi-open spaces, in variable ambient conditions and where occupancy can be transient, requires a greater degree of detail than that generally used in buildings. The classic approaches in permanent regimes of the Predicted Mean type have proved unsuitable for such environments, and so we resort to a transient model of human metabolism. In this article we present an indicator of comfort based on such a model, and the influence of physiological variability on it.

• November 10, 2020

  C8131

  Calculation of facade pressures for natural ventilation in semi-open spaces

  Naturally ventilated buildings and semi-open spaces such as stations are highly sensitive to wind driven air change. Classical methods for the determination of pressures on façades are based on simplified correlations depending on the wind incidence angle and idealized geometrical shape, unsuitable to most of actual buildings, especially in densely built environments. Therefore, the suggested method and guidelines presented here aim at establishing accurate pressure boundary conditions for building energy simulation, using computational fluid mechanics. The influence of the incidence angle discretization, the site’s environment and wind rose are also presented.

• March 10, 2020

  C8101

  Energy performance of existing buildings

  This article presents different case studies to apprehend the characterization of energy performance of existing buildings.It describes a decision support tool developed by the International Energy Agency for assessment and energy retrofitting of educational buildings. Then it presents a study aimed at characterizing energy performance of old buildings.These case studies show the importance of mastering interdisciplinary energy performance diagnoses (theories and practices) to evaluate the real energy performance of existing buildings. The complete study of this subject includes two articles (articles C8 100 and C8 101)

• December 10, 2019

  C8100

  Energy performance of existing buildings – Characterization

  Within the framework of the Grenelle Environnement Forum and the December 2002 European directive on the energy performance of already existing buildings, certain objectives have been set regarding consumption reduction. In order to meet them, a large number of actions have been envisaged both on the legislative and technical plane in order to rehabilitate our built heritage. However, characterizing the performances of these buildings is not easily achieved, whether it be it a simple characterization or a multiple one including a multi-criteria analysis. A methodological approach of the energy diagnostic and the choices to be made is essential and it is strongly recommended that they should integrate the enriching methods which were recently developed by the International Energy Agency.

• December 10, 2019

  C8129

  Radiative properties of buildings for passive cooling

  Modification of walls’ radiative properties with cool paints is a traditionally well-known passive cooling solution. Radiative properties of conventional cool selective materials allow limiting heat gains from solar radiation with a high albedo and to re-emit heat with a high thermal emissivity.Standardization of these materials is reflected in different building design standards and recommendations for the limitation of urban heat islands. Numerous innovations on radiative properties are being developed with the prospect of developing new categories of thermochromic products.

• April 10, 2018

  C8119

  Thermal regulations, structural thermal bridges and technological solutions

  Minimizing energy use in buildings, thereby improving the thermal performance of building envelopes, has become increasingly important in the drive for sustainability and energy security. We have seen the adoption of more stringent envelope thermal performance requirements in Building Regulations. Adding insulation to the building is one obvious way to do this, but insulation is not effective if there are easy heat flow paths around it. This is why codes and standards are progressively moving to requirements based on Effective Thermal Resistance, which requires identifying and minimizing thermal bridges in the building envelope with thermal break elements.

• January 10, 2017

  BE8585

  Grid-connected wind farms

  This article discusses the current implementation of wind energy for injecting electricity into electricity grids. It focuses on the technologies implemented for the study and construction of wind power plants, together with the compatibility of the intermittent supply of wind-generated electricity with the normal operation of the grids.

Access to a comprehensive database of articles

Rely on the ultimate technical and scientific knowledge database