Engineering Commons^™

Orange County Convention Center Energy Analysis And Energy Information System, Florida Solar Energy Center, Charles Withers, Jr.

FSEC Energy Research Center®

The Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) has the 2nd largest convention facility utilization in the nation. Two primary buildings provide about seven million square feet of conditioned space to approximately 1.5 million visitors per year. In efforts to reduce energy conservation, OCCC began implementing several energy conservation measures beginning in 2005 and continuing over the last 2 years with plans to continue additional efforts in the future. An analysis of monthly chilled water and electricity used by the West and North/South Buildings has been completed in an effort to investigate reductions in energy use resulting from conservation measures. This final …

Commissioning High Performance Residences In Hot, Humid Climates, Florida Solar Energy Center, Ken Fonorow

FSEC Energy Research Center®

Since 2001, the authors have engaged several builders in the Gainesville, FL area to build over 500 high performance new energy efficient homes in multiple sub divisions. The builders keep building to increased levels of energy efficiency. Each home is individually designed, inspected, rated and commissioned for optimum performance. This paper summarizes the experiences to date with two production builders who have cost shared with the Building America program to deliver these outstanding results. Keys to success are commitment from the final decision maker; scopes of work for subcontractors with specific performance criteria; clear communication with the trades often accompanied …

Closing The Gap: Getting Full Performance From Residential Central Air Conditioners. Task 4.2-Develop New Climate-Sensitive Air Conditioner, Design, Construction, And Testing, Florida Solar Energy Center, Don B. Shirey Iii

FSEC Energy Research Center®

This study evaluated the performance of a prototype air conditioning system. The configuration of the prototype was based on detailed simulation results performed as part of this study. The results of the previously completed simulation indicated that energy-efficient, properly-ventilated homes in humid climates need equipment options or configurations that can provide a modest amount of additional dehumidification capacity while coordinating their operation with conventional cooling and ventilation systems. A prototype air conditioning system was constructed using currently available components and provides a method to independently control sensible (temperature) and latent (moisture) building loads. The prototype system was tested in both …

Review Of Chilled Water And Electric Energy Use At The West And North/South Buildings Of The Orange County Convention Center, Florida Solar Energy Center, Charles Withers, Jr.

FSEC Energy Research Center®

The Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) has the 2nd largest convention facility utilization in the nation. Two primary buildings provide about seven million square feet of conditioned space to one million visitors per year. In efforts to reduce energy conservation, OCCC began implementing several energy conservation measures beginning in 2005 and continuing over the last 2 years with plans to continue additional efforts in the future. Examples of the types of energy conservation involved changing lighting and HVAC schedules and control methods, replacement of motors with higher efficiency, and turning off power to other unused equipment. An analysis of monthly …

Airflow Network Modeling In Energyplus, Florida Solar Energy Center, Lixing Gu

FSEC Energy Research Center®

The airflow network model in EnergyPlus provides the ability to simulate multizone wind-driven airflows. The model is also able to simulate the impacts of forced air distribution systems, including supply and return air leaks. The air distribution system portion of the model is currently applicable for constant-air-volume systems. Future enhancements will include adding hybrid ventilation control and possible extension to include variable-air-volume distribution systems.

This paper describes the input objects, calculation procedures, model validation, and example results. The model inputs consist of five main objects: simulation control, multizone data, node data, component data, and linkage data. The model calculates pressure …

A Simplified Hot Water Distribution System Model, Florida Solar Energy Center, Lixing Gu

FSEC Energy Research Center®

Water heating in the U.S. has been identified as a major component of total energy consumption used in buildings, mostly coming from the residential sector at around 11%. A potential opportunity for energy savings in water heating systems is to improve the design of hot water distribution systems (HWDS). Due to the complex heat losses of HWDS, models are needed to optimize HWDS by reducing heat losses. There are three models currently used to simulate thermal performance of hot water distribution systems (HWDS): HWSim, ORNL-HWDS, and TRNSYS. The first two models are used to study hot water distribution systems only …

Solar 2007: Florida's Emergency Shelters Go Solar, Florida Solar Energy Center, William Young

FSEC Energy Research Center®

Florida has its fair share of dangerous weather conditions including hurricanes, tornados and floods. Florida Legislature passed various laws and made revisions addressing disaster planning which required that the Department of Education, in consultation with school boards and county and state emergency management offices, develop design standards for public shelters to be incorporated into State Requirements for Educational Facilities.

Last year, Solar for Schools, a state program, provided funds to put photovoltaic systems on schools that are classified as shelters, adding a new dimension to the educational program. Middleton High School is an example of an application to power the …

Evaluation Of Current Stormwater Design Criteria Within The State Of Florida (2007), Stormwater Academy

BMP Trains Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Ucf Recommissioning Project Final Report, Florida Solar Energy Center, James Cummings

FSEC Energy Research Center®

A research project was carried out to examine the energy savings which occurred from recommissioning three University of Central Florida buildings. Recommissioning activities completed in two of the three buildings yielded chilled water and whole building electricity savings on the order of 15% to 30%. Recommissioning implementation is pending in the third building, where savings are projected to be in the range of 40% to 50% of total building energy use. Additionally, cooling energy savings were monitored (and calculated) for a green roof installation at one of these three buildings. Calculated savings were found to be 1.05 kWh/day for a …

Effectiveness Of Florida's Residential Energy Code: 1979 - 2007, Florida Solar Energy Center, Philip W. Fairey

FSEC Energy Research Center®

This study was commissioned by the Florida Department of Community Affairs’ Codes & Standards Section to determine the impacts of Florida’s Energy Efficiency Code over time and recommend possible changes that would increase residential efficiency. It examines each of the 14 residential energy code cycles that have occurred during the 28 year period and determines the relative change in code stringency and its impact on energy use and energy cost throughout the period. The study also examines Florida’s proposed 2007 Code1 to determine how its requirements compare with the requirements of Section 404 of the 2006 International Energy Conservation Code …

Effectiveness Of Green Roof Stormwater Treatment Systems Irrigated With Recycled Green Roof Filtrate To Achieve Pollutant Removal With Peak And Volume Reduction In Florida, Martin Wanielista, Michael Hardin

BMP Trains Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Closing The Gap: Getting Full Performance From Residential Central Air Conditioners, Task 4 - Develop New Climate-Sensitive Air Conditioner, Simulation Results And Cost Benefit Analysis, Florida Solar Energy Center, Hugh Henderson, Jr.

FSEC Energy Research Center®

This study evaluated the impacts of conventional and advanced cooling and dehumidification equipment on residential indoor humidity levels and annual energy consumption using whole building computer simulations. The life-cycle cost premium for the various advanced systems was also estimated. Building models were developed for a standard HERS Reference house, meant to represent current residential construction practice, and a High-Efficiency house that would likely qualify for a federal tax credit. The different houses were simulated in seven southeastern U.S. cities and with two ventilation/infiltration scenarios: 1) variable or natural infiltration alone, and 2) mechanical ventilation that complied with ASHRAE Standard 62.2-2004. …

Mitigating The Impacts Of Uncontrolled Air Flow On Indoor Environmental Quality And Energy Demand In Non-Residential Buildings, Florida Solar Energy Center, Hugh Henderson, Jr.

FSEC Energy Research Center®

This project builds on previous field research in Florida that has demonstrated the significant impact that uncontrolled air flows (UAFs) have on indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and energy use in small commercial buildings, a large but poorly understood segment of the nation's building stock. The goal of this project was to extend that research to a national scale by assessing the importance of UAFs in a sample of 25 commercial buildings in New York State. The differences in climate and construction techniques between New York and Florida are expected to bound the range conditions typically found on a national basis. …

Stormwater Effectiveness Of An Operating Green Roof Stormwater Treatment System And Comparison To Scaled Down Green Roof Stormwater Treatment System Chambers (2007), Martin Wanielista, Mike Hardin

BMP Trains Research and Publications

This report presents the results of a successful operating green roof in the state of Florida. The green roof is located on the Student Union building at the University of Central Florida. This green roof has thrived for more than two years hosting more than 50 tours educating architects, engineers, and policy makers on the many benefits green roofs provide.

Comparison of this full sized operating green roof stormwater treatment system with scaled down green roof stormwater treatment system chambers showed that the full size system can be described by the previously reported equivalent experimental chamber data. Thus the experimental …

Priorities For Energy Efficiency For Home Construction In Florida, Florida Solar Energy Center, Robin Vieira

FSEC Energy Research Center®

Below we provide the priorities for obtaining an energy efficient building in Florida.

Experimental Evaluation Of Nightcool Nocturnal Radiation Cooling Concept: Performance Assessment In Scale Test Buildings, Florida Solar Energy Center, Danny Parker

FSEC Energy Research Center®

An experimental test evaluation has been conducted of a night sky cooling system designed to substantially reduce space cooling needs in homes in North American climates. The system uses a sealed attic covered by a highly conductive metal roof (a roof integrated radiator) which is selectively linked by air flow to the main zone with the attic zone to provide cooling- largely during nighttime hours. Available house mass is used to store sensible cooling. Additional dehumidification is done during the evening hours as warranted by interior conditions.

A previous report describes a detailed simulation model of the relevant night cooling …

Ultra-Wideband Orthogonal Frequency Coded Saw Correlators, Daniel Gallagher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ultra-wideband (UWB) communication new technology with ability to share the FCC allocated frequency spectrum, large channel capacity and data rate, simple transceiver architecture and high performance in noisy environments. Such communication advantages have paved the way for emerging wireless technologies such as wireless high definition video streaming, wireless sensor networks and more. This thesis examines orthogonal frequency coded surface acoustic wave (SAW) correlators for use in advanced UWB communication systems. Orthogonal frequency coding (OFC) and pseudo-noise (PN) coding provides a means for UWB spreading of data. The use of OFC spectrally spreads a PN sequence beyond that of CDMA because …

Simulation And Study Of The Stokes Vector In A Precipitating Atmosphere, Ian Adams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Precipitation is a dominating quantity in microwave radiometry. The large emission and scattering signals of rain and ice, respectively, introduce large contributions to the measured brightness temperature. While this allows for accurate sensing of precipitation, it also results in degraded performance when retrieving other geophysical parameters, such as near-surface ocean winds. In particular, the retrieval of wind direction requires precise knowledge of polarization, and nonspherical particles can result in a change in the polarization of incident radiation. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the polarizing effects of precipitation in the atmosphere, including the existence of a precipitation signal …

Assessment Of The Safety Benefits Of Vms And Vsl Using The Ucf Driving Simulator, Cristina Dos Santos

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Researchers at the University of Central Florida (UCF) have been working during the past few years on different strategies to improve freeway safety in real-time. An ongoing research at UCF has investigated crash patterns that occurred on a stretch of Interstate-4 located in Orlando, FL and created statistical models to predict in real-time the likelihood of a crash in terms of time and space. The models were then tested using PARAMICS micro-simulation and different strategies that would reduce the risk of crashes were suggested. One of the main recommended strategies was the use of Variable Speed Limits (VSL) which intervenes …

Learning Geometry-Free Face Re-Lighting, Thomas Brendan Moore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The accurate modeling of the variability of illumination in a class of images is a fundamental problem that occurs in many areas of computer vision and graphics. For instance, in computer vision there is the problem of facial recognition. Simply, one would hope to be able to identify a known face under any illumination. On the other hand, in graphics one could imagine a system that, given an image, the illumination model could be identified and then used to create new images. In this thesis we describe a method for learning the illumination model for a class of images. Once …

Modeling,Design,And Characterization Of Monolithic Bi-Directional Power Semiconductor Switch, Yue Fu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Bidirectional power switching devices are needed in many power management applications, particularly in lithium-ion battery protection circuitry. A monolithic bidirectional power switch fabricated with a simplified CMOS technology is introduced in this dissertation. Throughout the design process, ISE TCAD tool plays an important role. Design variables are carefully analyzed to improve the device performance or yield the best trade off. Optimization is done with the help of TCAD simulation and theoretical calculations. The device has been successfully fabricated using simplified 0.5 micron CMOS process. The experimental result shows a breakdown voltage of 25V. Due to the interdigitated source to source …

Investigation Of Reactively Sputtered Silicon Carbon Boron Nitride (Sicbn) Thin Films For High Temperature Applications, Arun Vijayakumar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The increasing demand for efficient energy systems in the last decade has brought about the development of advanced sensor systems that utilize advance detection methods to help in preventive maintenance of these essential systems. These usually are needed in hard to access environments where conditions are extreme and unfit for human interaction. Thin film based sensors deposited directly on the surfaces exposed to harsh environments can serve as ideal means of measuring the temperature of the component during operation. They provide the basic advantage of proximity to the surface and hence accurate measurement of the surface temperature. The low mass …

On Advanced Template-Based Interpretation As Applied To Intention Recognition In A Strategic Environment, Cameron Akridge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An area of study that has received much attention over the past few decades is simulations involving threat assessment in military scenarios. Recently, much research has emerged concerning the recognition of troop movements and formations in non-combat simulations. Additionally, there have been efforts towards the detection and assessment of various types of malicious intentions. One such work by Akridge addressed the issue of Strategic Intention Recognition, but fell short in the detection of tactics that it could not detect without somehow manipulating the environment. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to address the problem of recognizing an opponent's intent …

Integrated Topologies And Digital Control For Satellite Power Management And Distribution Systems, Hussam Al-Atrash

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work is focused on exploring advanced solutions for space power management and distribution (PMAD) systems. As spacecraft power requirements continue to increase, paralleled by the pressures for reducing cost and overall system weight, power electronics engineers will continue to face major redesigns of the space power systems in order to meet such challenges. Front-end PMAD systems, used to interface the solar sources and battery backup to the distribution bus, need to be designed with increased efficiency, reliability, and power density. A new family of integrated single-stage power converter structures is introduced here. This family allows the interface and control …

Reviewing The Effects Of Alternative Fuels, Average Speed And Idling Time On Emissions From Orange County School Bus Fleet, Ali Bayat

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Orange County, FL has been experiencing ozone concentrations in the past several years which in some cases exceeded the national and state standards. The high concentration of ground level ozone can cause a variety of health problems including chest pain, coughing, throat irritation, and congestion or it can worsen bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma. Other effects include reduction of agricultural crop and commercial forest yields, lower growth and survivability of tree seedlings, and higher susceptibility of plant to diseases, pests and other stresses such as harsh weather. The ozone generation rate is directly related to the ambient concentration of nitrogen oxides …

Design And Implementation Of A Hardware Level Content Networking Front End Device, Jeremy Layne Buboltz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The bandwidth and speed of network connections are continually increasing. The speed increase in network technology is set to soon outpace the speed increase in CMOS technology. This asymmetrical growth is beginning to causing software applications that once worked with then current levels of network traffic to flounder under the new high data rates. Processes that were once executed in software now have to be executed, partially if not wholly in hardware. One such application that could benefit from hardware implementation is high layer routing. By allowing a network device to peer into higher layers of the OSI model, the …

Spacecraft Loads Predictionvia Sensitivity Analysis And Optimization, Tom Braswell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Discrepancies between the predicted responses of a finite element analysis (FEA) and reference data from test results arise for many reasons. Some are due to measurement errors, such as inaccurate sensors, noise in the acquisition system or environmental effects. Some are due to analyst errors precipitated by a lack of familiarity with the modeling or solver software. Still others are introduced by uncertainty in the governing physical relations (linear versus non-linear behavior), boundary conditions or the element material/geometrical properties. It is the uncertainty effects introduced by this last group that this study seeks to redress. The objective is the obtainment …

Dimesionality Aspects Of Nano Micro Integrated Metal Oxide Based Early Stage Leak Detection Room Temperature Hydrogen Sensor, Sameer Arun Deshpande

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Detection of explosive gas leaks such as hydrogen (H2) becomes key element in the wake of counter-terrorism threats, introduction of hydrogen powered vehicles and use of hydrogen as a fuel for space explorations. In recent years, a significant interest has developed on metal oxide nanostructured sensors for the detection of hydrogen gas. Gas sensors properties such as sensitivity, selectivity and response time can be enhanced by tailoring the size, the shape, the structure and the surface of the nanostructures. Sensor properties (sensitivity, selectivity and response time) are largely modulated by operating temperature of the device. Issues like instability of nanostructures …

Four Terminal Junction Field-Effect Transistor Model For Computer-Aided Design, Hao Ding

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A compact model for four-terminal (independent top and bottom gates) junction field-effect transistor (JFET) is presented in this dissertation. The model describes the steady-state characteristics with a unified equation for all bias conditions that provides a high degree of accuracy and continuity of conductance, which are important for predictive analog circuit simulations. It also includes capacitance and leakage equations. A special capacitance drop-off phenomenon at the pinch-off region is studies and modeled. The operations of the junction fieldeffect transistor (JFET) with an oxide top-gate and full oxide isolation are analyzed, and a semi-physical compact model is developed. The effects of …

High Pressure Testing Of Composite Solid Rocket Propellant Mixtures: Burner Facility Characterization, Rodolphe Valentin Carro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Much Research on composite solid propellants has been performed over the past few decades and much progress has been made, yet many of the fundamental processes are still unknown, and the development of new propellants remains highly empirical. Ways to enhance the performance of solid propellants for rocket and other applications continue to be explored experimentally, including the effects of various additives and the impact of fuel and oxidizer particle sizes on burning behavior. One established method to measure the burning rate of composite propellant mixtures in a controlled laboratory setting is to use a constant-volume pressure vessel, or strand …