Sustainable Construction, Material Performance, and Human Comfort in Modern Building Projects

Assignment Brief

Unit Learning Outcomes

LO1 Review health and safety regulations and legislation associated with the storage, handling and use of materials on a construction site.

LO2 Discuss the environmental and sustainability factors which can impact on and influence the material choices for a construction project.

LO3 Present material choices for a given building using performance properties, experimental data, sustainability and environmental consideration.

LO4 Evaluate the performance of a given building in respect of its human comfort requirements.

Assignment Brief and Guidance

You are employed by a large general contractor, as a Design Build Technician. The company has recently appointed a new Managing Director who has decided to shift the company’s focus towards greater use of sustainable practices. To achieve this, the Managing Director has asked you to prepare reports on how to improve sustainability and awareness of the environmental impact of construction activities within the construction process. The Managing Director suggests that your presentation covers the following tasks:

1. Explain the main procedures involved in the safe storage of construction materials and construction waste on site

2. Some materials need special handling either due to their weight or to the effect they may have on health, outline the procedures involved with a material containing dangerous dust and a second where weight is an issue

3. Outline how a risk assement is conducted on the excavation of a service trench aand compare this with the risks of working on scaffolding. Prepare a risk assessment for cutting a concrete paving slab and show how these procedures help improve the standard of Health and Safety in modern construction sites.

4. Explain how many different health and safety regulations such as Constructin Design Management and other recent developments in health and safety regulations apply to a site activity with which you are familiar helping to ensure a safe handling and use of the materials used.

TASK 2

1. Explain material environmental profiling and life cycle assessment in a civil engineering context. Show how this is influencing the choice of materials for a specific construction project with which you might be familiar or where a case study is available.

2. Discuss the benefits of product declaration and environmental certification in establishing a good environmental profile either for a construction project that you are famillar with or a case study that has been published..

3. Produce a waste management plan for a given project, taking into account a typical range of relevant waste materials.

4. Give examples of sustainable practices and considerations for material choice which have contributed to good environmental ratings for a typical building. (For this part it is suggested that you consult the information available from the BRE)

TASK3

1. Taking the results from tests that you have conducted in the laboratory, show that different materials are suitable for use in the building structural framework, or in provision of insulation

2. Discuss these results in terms of the material properties and regulatory requirements.

3. Show how testing procedures are designed to overcome the variation inherent in construction materials and how statistical methods are used to investigate results that are very different from those of most of the other values in the sample.

4. The choice of building materials for the outside of the building are to be selected for their performance and environmental characteristics. Suggest suitable materials and state clearly why this choice has been made.

5. Examine the choice of materials for the columns in the building referring to Euler’s buckling formula to show how the main considerations that are needed to prevent buckling. Give an example of the testing procedure that would be used to check that the material would be able to support a structure.

6. Show how the use of appropriate materials and other sustainable practices and design work contribute to an improved environmental rating .

TASK4

1. State clearly what are the five main requirements for human comfort within the building under construction.

2. For each of the main requirements in a) above indicate what characteristics are needed in the materials used in the structure to ensure human comfort with the minimum of environmental disturbance.

3. There are several office areas within this multi-use building, show what charctersitics of materials and passive design choices used for this area which will help to promote human comfort..

4. Estimate the rate in kilowatts at which heat needs to be generated in the building to maintain an inside temperature of 200C when the outside temperature is at 00C assuming that the windows make up 30% of the outside wall area. That the walls are insulated to a U value of 0.2,watts m-2 0C-1 the roof and floor to a U value of 0.23 watts m-2 0C-1 and the windows (triple glazed have a U value of 0.9 watts m-2 0C-1.

5. If the building is designed for 150 occupants some of whom are sitting most of the time but some are quite active assume that the average need for fresh air averages out at 8 litres per second per person. Calculate how much heat would be lost supplying this amount of cold fresh air when the outside air is at 00C assuming that the specific heat capacity of the air is 1kJm-3 oC-1

6. One of the spaces inside the building is used for meetings and can hold up to 200 people if needed. The dimensions of this space are 17m x 30mx8m high. The walls of this are 30% glass with an absorption coefficient of (double glazing with 10mm gap) at 500Hz = 0.03, the walls of acoustic timber wall panelling 0.42, the floor as carpeted over concrete is 0.25 and the ceiling is covered with perforated plaster board with an absorption coefficient of 0.85. Calculate the reverberation time of this space.

7. Discuss what is menat by passive and active design. Show how passive and active design methods can reduce the energy used by the occupants of the building, minimise the use of nonrenewable materials, cut down on water use and minimise the footprint of the building.