UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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    ENERGY CONSUMPTION REDUCTION OF COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS THROUGH THE IMPLEMENTATION OF VIRTUAL AND EXPERIMENTAL ENERGY AUDIT ANALYSIS
    (2022) Bae, Ji Han; Ohadi, Michael; Mechanical Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), about 38 quads of the total U.S. energy consumption was consumed by residential and commercial buildings in 2017, which is about 39% of the total 2017 annual U.S. energy consumption (EIA, 2018). Additionally, the building sector is responsible for about 75% of the total U.S. electricity consumption as well as for about 70% of the projected growth in the U.S. electricity demand through 2040. It is clear that the potential for energy savings and greenhouse gas emissions reduction in existing buildings today remain largely untapped and that there is still much left to explore in respect to determining the best protocols for reducing building energy consumption on a national and even a global scale. The present work investigates the effectiveness of coupling an initial virtual energy audit screening with the conventional, hands-on, energy audit processes to more quickly and less costly obtain the potential energy savings for high energy consumption buildings. The virtual screening tool takes advantage of a customized cloud-based energy efficiency management software and the readily available building energy consumption data to identify the buildings that have the highest energy savings potential and should be given priority for performing onsite walkthroughs, detailed energy audits, and the subsequent implementation of the identified energy conservation measures (ECMs). By applying the proposed procedure to a group of buildings, the results of this study demonstrated that a combination of the software-based screening tools and a detailed experimental/onsite energy audit as necessary can effectively take advantage of the potential energy consumption and carbon footprint reduction in existing buildings today and that the low-cost/no-cost energy conservation measures alone can oftentimes result in significant savings as documented in this thesis. However, selection of the appropriate software was deemed critically important, as certain software limitations were observed to hinder the obtainment of some energy savings opportunities.
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    THE TROUBLE WITH VOLUNTARY CARBON TRADING FOR BUILDINGS EXPOSED TO HURRICANE RISK
    (2017) Liu, Xiaoyu; Cui, Qingbin; Civil Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Increased climate risks pose challenges of combining climate mitigation and adaptation goals into building designs. These two goals are often misaligned, as adaptation measures use additional materials and equipment that are sources of carbon emissions. This phenomenon causes building design to involve tradeoffs between enhancing structural resilience and reducing emissions. This dissertation addresses the need to identify the optimal investment mechanisms for the design of buildings in hurricane-prone regions. Dynamic decision-making models are developed for individual investors to characterize emission trading and risk mitigation behaviors over a building’s lifecycle. The models enable the following outcomes: (i) evaluation and selection of baseline rules for sectoral emission trading, (ii) ability to reflect resilience goals in the building design, construction and maintenance, and to balance between climate mitigation and adaptation goals for a wide range of building examples, and (iii) policy implications for improving emission trading efficiencies and achieving environmental and economic sustainability at community level. Modeling results indicate that the trouble of voluntary emission trading is mainly attributed to imperfect market information and future climate risks. The uncertainty in predicting emissions and potential baseline manipulation leads to the production of non-additional carbon offsets and an extension of sectoral emission caps. This situation is even bleaker when emission trading are implemented in the areas that exposure to significant risks of catastrophic events such as hurricanes. The results reveal a trend of a transition from long-advocated low-carbon investment to a risk-oriented portfolio for building retrofits in hurricane-prone regions. The risk mitigation efforts should be pursued with discretion on the accuracy of insurance premium discounts. Meanwhile, subsidies for emission abatements are recommended to accommodate existing emission trading schemes and building property values.
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    Simulation and Analysis of Energy Consumption for an Energy-Intensive Academic Research Building
    (2014) Levy, Jared Michael; Ohadi, Michael M.; Mechanical Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The University of Maryland's Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building is a state-of-the-art academic research facility. This thesis describes an energy analysis and simulation study that serves to identify energy saving opportunities and optimum operation of the building to achieve its goals of high energy efficiency and substantial CO2 emission reduction. A utility analysis, including a benchmarking study, was completed to gauge the performance of the facility and a detailed energy model was developed using EnergyPlus to mimic current operation. The baseline energy model was then used to simulate eight energy efficiency measures for a combined energy savings of 16,760 MMBtu, reducing annual energy use by 25.3%. The simple payback period for the proposed measures as a single project is estimated to be less than one year. Due to the high-tech and unique usage of the Kim Engineering Building, including cleanrooms and research labs, this thesis also contributes to the development of energy consumption benchmarking data available for such facilities.
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    EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF A MULTIFUNTIONAL VARIABLE REFRIGERANT FLOW SYSTEM IN AN EDUCATIONAL OFFICE BUILDING
    (2013) Kwon, Laeun; Hwang, Yunho; Mechanical Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The top three end uses - space heating, space cooling, and water heating - accounted for close to 41 percent of site energy consumption in U.S. building primary energy consumption. Therefore, energy efficient heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems in buildings is essential for energy savings in the building sectors. A multifunctional variable refrigerant flow (MFVRF) system is finding its way into residential and commercial buildings since it can simultaneously provide space cooling, space heating and hot water. The MFVRF system was installed in an educational office building and fully instrumented to measure the performance of the system under a wide range of outdoor weather conditions. The effects of a part-load ratio (PLR) on the daily performance factor (DPF) and total energy consumption were experimentally investigated in the field performance tests. Although the higher PLR represents a more effective cooling and/or heating the system, the DPF is not always increased with PLR because the system is optimized at a certain range of PLR. Furthermore, the effects of the hot water demand and the heat recovery operation modes on the performance of the system were investigated in a field test for the heating and shoulder seasons. Integrating the water heating functions into the heat recovery type variable refrigerant flow (HR-VRF) system, not only supplies hot water year-round, it also improves the system performance. As the hot water demand for the MFVRF system increased, the PLR was improved, which resulted in an increase system heating performance. In the heat recovery operation mode, the heat absorbed from the indoor units operating in the cooling mode was transferred to other indoor units operating in the heating mode. The DPF was 2.14 and 3.54 when the ratio of daily total cooling energy to daily total heating energy was 13.0% and 28.4%, respectively, at the similar outdoor weather conditions. This enhancement was attributed to the waste heat recovered during the heat recovery operation mode and the decrease in pressure ratio, which is a result of the improvement of the compressor efficiency. Energy saving potential of the MFVRF system in a building with high internal heat gains, resulted in a high cooling load for the cooling season and a low heating load for the heating season, was verified through the field performance test. The performance of the MFVRF system for the heating and shoulder seasons was improved by transferring the recovered energy to the indoor space and supplying the hot water.