How to reach to net-0 water building

In my last blogger, I mentioned that algae cell may use brown water as its nutrition solution. That makes me think that whether we can reach to Net-0 water building through this processing which is another factor of reach green building. ( for example, LBC (Live Building Challenge) evaluation requires green building to be Net-0 building) 

In Florida, annually rainfall is about 50-60 inches. Most of the water goes into or under ground. Storm water are not portable in any culture, but they are not "dirty". We may use it for toilets and urinals flushing, irrigation or the fire sprinkler system so that valuable portable water can be saved. However, that's not enough to reach "Net-0" water building. We may want to go deeper on how to use these storm water. ( the amount of storm water is not a factor to be worried about in Florida but some other "water shortage” states such as Nevada.) 

If storm water is the only water resource other than tap water, and we have plenty of them, The first thing to do is to make it portable. A technology called membrane bio-reactor (MBR) can help reach the function. 

After purifying processing, we will have totally portable water. Next step will be how to treat the waste water. (because gray water and black water are too dirty to treat by MBR) We should at least transfer the gray or black water into the same cleanliness as storm water so that it won't pollute the nature (also can be recycled if necessary). We may use "Living Machine" to reach that goal: use soil and plants (algae mentioned before is also counted as plants) as first purifier:

As the a system, it should look like so:

   It is only a concept of how to achieve Net-0 water building in Florida. Further research and feasible reports will be needed.  

Multiple ways of getting Net-0 energy building

No matter which green building evaluation we are using, LEED, green globe or LBC, energy consumption is one of the biggest concern. In fact, LBC requires net-0 energy building in its requirement. PV panel maybe the most available products to reach that point, however, its low efficiency and high cost encounters a lot of critics. Not to mention its CO2 emission in it's producing.

Truly, solar power is the only energy resource for the world, but there are multiply ways of storing this type of energy. Our nature world gives an perfect example about how to transfer energy and the idea is becoming realistic. For example, algae solar cells:

Algae is widely existed in nature. After direct or indirectly lighting, they will produce a product called SVO or straight vegetable oil which can be transfer into bio-diesel later. In this processing, it absorb CO2 and emit   O2. This is also the basic idea of algae solar cell. In the processing, only water and CO2 are needed. Algae is 3 times efficiency than PV products; And if treated correctly, we may use brown water instead of using portable water. Biomass left will total green.

The first Algae building is located in Germany.  "A 15-unit apartment building has been constructed in the German city of Hamburg that has 129 algae filled louvered tanks hanging over the exterior of the south-east and south-west sides of the building—making it the first in the world to be powered exclusively by algae. Designed by Arup, SSC Strategic Science Consultants and Splitterwerk Architects, and named the Bio Intelligent Quotient (BIQ) House, the building demonstrates the ability to use algae as a way to heat and cool large buildings."

Compare to traditional PV products, the system may have some short legs: 

1. it's not generating electrical but bio-diesel which is considered as a lower level of energy. There will be some energy lost if transferred into electrical power.

2. More complex system and cost more on maintenance.

3. Special environment control required. 

4. Not mature marketing yet

...

At least, it opens our minds on how to utilize solar energy besides PV technology.

Continue on: 3-D printing -Contour Crafting (CC)

Continue on: 3-D printing -Contour Crafting (CC)

Automated tiling of floors and walls: Automated tiling of floors and walls can be done by robotically delivering and spreading the material for adhesion of tiles to floors or walls. robotic arm can then pick the tiles from a stack and accurately place them over the area treated with the adhesive material. These robotic arms may be installed on the same structure which moves the nozzle.

Because of its layer by layer fabrication method, a Contour Crafting based construction system has the potential to build utility conduits within walls. This makes automate construction of plumbing and electrical networks possible.

For plumbing, after fabrication of several wall layers, a segment of copper (or other material) pipe is attached through the pipe onto the lower segment already installed. The robotics system delivers the new pipe segment and in case of copper pipes has a heater element (shown in red) in the form of a ring. The inside (or outside) rim of each pipe segment is pretreated with a layer of solder. The heater ring heats the connection area, melts the material, and once the alignment is made, bonds the two pipe segments. (a Check system should be involved into the processing to make sure no leakage can be detected)

The needed components may be prearranged in a tray by the robotic assembly system. Using these components various plumbing networks may be automatically imbedded in the structure.

3D printing on construction - Contour Crafting (CC)

             3D printing on construction - Contour Crafting (CC) 
Contour Crafting (CC) is a layered fabrication technology developed by Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis of the University of Southern California. Contour Crafting technology has great potential for automating the construction of whole structures as well as sub-components. Using this process, a single house or a colony of houses, each with possibly a different design, may be automatically constructed in a single run, embedded in each house all the conduits for electrical, plumbing and air-conditioning.

 

Figure - 1

The key feature of CC is to use double trowels acting as 2 solid planar surfaces to create a smooth and accurate fabrication. As shown in figure - 1 , the extrusion nozzle has a top and a side trowel. As the material is pushed out, the traversal of the trowels creates smooth outer and top surfaces on the layer. The side trowel can be deflected to create non-orthogonal surfaces. The extrusion process builds only the outside edges of each layer of the object. After complete extrusion of each closed section of a given layer, if needed filler material such as concrete can be poured to fill the area defined by the extruded edges.

                                     Figure - 2
Application of CC at job site is shown as figure - 2.Nozzle is carried by a two parallel lanes which nozzle can move on on a gantry machine.This process allows architects to design structures with functional and exotic architectural geometries that are not easy to realize by current manual construction approach. Also, multiple materials that chemically react with one another may be fed through the CC nozzle system and mixed in the nozzle barrel immediately before deposition.

 Figure - 3

CC is mostly controlled by computer, accurate amounts of selected construction materials may be deposited precisely in the required locations. In this way, elements such as strain sensors, floor and wall heaters can be built into the structure in an integrated. Robot control steel-mesh reinforcement may be devised too, as shown in Figure - 3.

Here are some picture of CC lab made material. really cool technology.

 CC can do more than concrete and reinforcement job. I will keep digging for more information on automatic tiling of floors and walls, plumbing system, electrical system by CC technology.  

 

what can 3-D print do for construction industrial

what can 3-D printing technology do for construction industrial

 3-D technology is first introduced in 1995 by MIT. The basic principle is to perform a print that the machine reads the design and lays down successive layers of liquid, powder, or sheet material to build the model from a series of cross sections. These layers, which correspond to the virtual cross sections from the CAD model, are joined together or automatically fused to create the final shape. The primary advantage of this technique is its ability to create almost any shape or geometric feature.
This video may gives an idea about how 3-D printer work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aghzpO_UZE

I dare to say that industrial revolution is happening with this type of technology. Just like steam engine change the traditional way of manufacturing, think about how easier and faster it is compare to old ways. And it does save up about 99% waste. It also provides much more possibilities to make things happen, say, we do not need to send tools to the space station but only 3-D printer and some raw material powder. we can also make something seems impossible.. XD

 So, back to construction industrial, I found some interesting news: Amsterdam-based Universe Architecture hopes to build the world's first 3D-printed house as early as 2014. Website:http://www.gizmag.com/giant-3d-printer-endless-house/25913/ 

Basically, doing 3-D printing in construction is also called Contour Crafting. I will look into it in my future study. Here is a simple picture showing how it works on structure of buildings.

A lot of headache we have in construction site can be saved with this contour crafting technology, for example, labor management, safety, scheduling... More important, it is "greener" if 90% of concrete waste can be saved. The only thing need to be worried is to input the right drawing...XD   

I remember the final project of Principle of Sustainable Buildings I took last semester is to build earth bag construction which use locally available material, like dirt and sand to build a house. With this technology, We probably make it easier. Go further, think about building a shelter or station on the moon..

Although this technology is still in developing and single-functioning on building's structure for now, the exciting part is it is getting more cheaper and more delicate. It’s only a matter of time for it's mature industrial utilization.

The Heaviest Haze Blanketed China

The Heaviest Haze Blanketed China

In this week, the worst round of air pollution hit China. Beijing became the biggest victim, under a cloud of smog since last Saturday. Murky haze raised the number of patients in respiratory and skin disease; children are kept from doing practice outside; 58 factories were suspended work and 30% of government vehicles off the road. Based on the US Embassy’s record, Levels of PM 2.5 particles (airborne particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 microns or less, which can cause health problems when inhaled) in Beijing had reached to 500 in Tuesday which is beyond the index level. (shown below)

In fact, it’s not an occurrence for Chinese people. They have been long term lived in a terrible environment. Based on the Index at Yale University, China’s environmental performance ranks 116^th overall, and 128^th on its air quality. In the top 10 cities with worst air quality, 7 are from China. This is an embarrassing score for China who is the 2^nd largest economic entity in the world. What happened to this country?

From the environment center, there are 3 reasons caused dust haze:

1.      The direct reason is high emission of pollution and dust. Mainly from 3 main pathways: coal mining, industries and vehicles.

2.      Construction’s block and friction reduced the movement of air and reduce the speed of little particles diffusion.

3.      The location of Beijing is surrounded by hills, further retarded the airflow in the city. Plus huge humidity of the section between winter and spring. Finally form this pollution event.

For these reasons, besides the 2^nd reason is directly related to construction, the first reason is more or less related to construction, or say, construction chain including industrial phase and operation phase. Actually, in the production of construction materials, lots of pollutions are emitted including imperfect combustion carbon particles, heavy medal particles and other chemical gases such as CO, SO₂, NO_X and toxic organic gas such as Dioxin, ect. Also in the operation phase, coal mine are the major heat and electrical resources in most of the cities in China which makes the control of the energy consumption in buildings a big issue.

China is struggling with how to reduce dust emission in construction right now. It seems too far away to talk about how to reduce carbon footprint because in all, carbon dioxide widely exists in the nature and seems not to toxic compare to these materials above. However, from my point of view, the solution of reduces construction dust and carbon footprint is can be the same: reduce usage of fossil energy and increase efficiency on them. Although it is not a new story and needs really long (maybe hundreds years) effort on.

Back to the of Beijing’s haze issue, construction may be the major reason but not the only one. In short term, this situation may not have a big change. But by analyzing the reasons, I learned something from it. Construction as a heavy cement structure in the city not only cause heat island effect, but also retarded the air movement. Dust will then sink down to the “low level” area. Therefore, as a city planner planning a city, try not committing a city center which tall buildings and skyscrapers are gathered in the same area. For constructors, try to design low friction surface so that air around it can freely move away.

At the last, I would like to raise a feasibility discussion, is it possible to build up an air filter system for a whole city with little energy? I am thinking about using convection. Diagraph showing below. 

 

These lines underground are ventilation system. During the daytime, sun will heat up one side of the buildings and the other side is become cooler. If we can build up underground ventilation system in the city, when cooler air move to the hotter area it will suck the nearby dust goes underground. As the sun goes from one side to another, the air will be moved back and force. The dust will move with air. If then we install a filter in the middle, it will finally collect the dust.

high performance construction