Volume 13 (2017): Issue 4 (December 2017)

In this paper a functional model to estimate the inelastic displacement ratio as a function of the ductility factor is presented. The coefficients of the functional model are approximated using nonlinear regression. The used data is in the form of computed displacement for an inelastic single degree of freedom system with a fixed ductility factor. The inelastic seismic response spectra of constant ductility factors are used for generating data. A method for selecting ground-motions that have similar frequency content to that of the ones picked for the comparison is presented. The variability of the seismic response of nonlinear single degree of freedom systems with different hysteretic behavior is presented.

In view of the recent preoccupation at worldwide level, for the integration of the solar systems components within the building skin, we made a numerical investigation in order to assess the opportunity to implement a long string of solar panels along a horizontal or vertical building surface.The study analyses deals with the phenomenon of self-shading, which appears in the case of medium and large solar systems that use solar panels placed one behind the other, along the same row (individual string), but also under the shape of parallel rows (parallel strings). The study creates a mathematical instrument for the evaluation of the shaded surface depending on the location of the panels and the relative position of the Sun. The shading-caused energy loss is analysed along the one-year period, for each of the 12 months, while the panels are considered either placed on a horizontal surface such as a building terrace, or on a vertical surface, such as a building facade. The simulations are made for six Romanian cities located in different climatic zones, characterized by different levels of solar radiation.

The rainfall-runoff transformation is a highly complex dynamic process and the development of fast and robust modelling instruments has always been one of the most important topics for hydrology. Over time, a significant number of hydrological models have been developed with a clear trend towards a process-based approach. The downside of these types of models is the significant amount of data required for building the model and for the calibration process: in practice, the collection of all necessary data for such models proves to be a difficult task. In order to cope with this issue, various data-driven modelling techniques have been introduced for hydrological modelling as an alternative to more traditional approaches, on the basis of their capacity of mapping out complex relationships from observation data. Having the capacity to generate meaningful mathematical structures as results, genetic programming (GP) presents a high potential for rainfall-runoff modelling as a data-driven method. Using ground and radar rainfall observation, the aim of this study is to investigate the GP technique capability for modelling the rainfall-runoff process, taking into consideration a flash-flood event.

Used and developed initially for the IT industry, the Cloud computing and Internet of Things concepts are found at this moment in a lot of sectors of activity, building industry being one of them. These are defined like a global computing, monitoring and analyze network, which is composed of hardware and software resources, with the feature of allocating and dynamically relocating the shared resources, in accordance with user requirements. Data analysis and process optimization techniques based on these new concepts are used increasingly more in the buildings industry area, especially for an optimal operations of the buildings installations and also for increasing occupants comfort. The multitude of building data taken from HVAC sensor, from automation and control systems and from the other systems connected to the network are optimally managed by these new analysis techniques. Through analysis techniques can be identified and manage the issues the arise in operation of building installations like critical alarms, nonfunctional equipment, issues regarding the occupants comfort, for example the upper and lower temperature deviation to the set point and other issues related to equipment maintenance. In this study, a new approach regarding building control is presented and also a generalized methodology for applying data analysis to building services data is described. This methodology is then demonstrated using two case studies.