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| Project 1 deals with wind resistant structures. The objective of project 1 is to establish a rational and economic method for designing wind resistant structures and the preventing wind disasters to buildings and cities.
1. Construction of a system for predicting strong wind occurrence probability
A study will be conducted to simulate the occurrence probability of strong wind considering the local climate. Typhoon simulation will be carried out to predict design wind speed.
2. Understanding the characteristics of wind force on structures and establishment of a response prediction method
A digital database of wind pressure and wind load on structures will be constructed while understanding the characteristics of wind force on structures. The wind response features of structures up to the plastic domain, as well as a system for predicting wind responses, will be studied. Techniques of fatigue design and wind resistant design for extreme wind and force conditions will be discussed.
3. Establishment of a response-monitoring system and a wind hazard mitigation system
Field measurements of wind responses of buildings will be conducted. Precise systems to identify structures and to monitor their wind responses will be developed with the aid of a GPS technique. In conjunction with the FEM model, a system for evaluating the safety of structures will be developed. A method for constructing wind resistant structures that is suitable for APEC countries will also be developed.
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| | Development of a sustainable society has been anticipated for a long time.
In the architectural field, it is necessary to save energy and minimize the use of fossil fuel while securing the safety and health of structures.
The amount of CO2 discharge in architecture related fields is a third of the total in Japan. It is necessary to improve the sustainability of structures by decreasing the loading on the environment.
The majority of human activity is done inside a house. For a general office building, about 60% of the LCF (Life cycle energy) are due to running costs while using the office. Therefore, it is necessary to decrease the environmental loading of running costs and to optimize energy consumption. At the same time, it is necessary to save energy and maintain safety, conformability and productablity. It is a tradeoff-like problem, and it is difficult to obtain a balance.
Thus, Project 2 aims at development of a method for designing openings in structures to promote ventilation. Ventilation features near openings and the turbulence characteristics will be clarified and turbulence phenomena around openings will be determined. Furthermore, a ventilation design method will be developed combining the ventilation feather, the opening and the climate database. As a result of this study, a highly accurate ventilation prediction system will be developed, with which hybrid air condition systems with natural ventilation can be designed. With the spread of these hybrid air conditioning systems, the energy-consumption of air conditioner systems will decrease.
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| | Air pollution from Nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particle-like substances (SPM) in urban areas is becoming worse, although some regulations, for instance, for control of automobile emission, have been introduced. At the same time, air pollution inside houses, for instance, sick houses and sick buildings, is becoming serious. A method for combating air pollution inside and outside buildings is anticipated.
In project 3, the structure of air pollution inside and outside buildings will be studied, aimed at establishing a method for protecting them from air pollution. The research objective is to determine pollution dispersion characteristics and to establish a precise method for predicting dispersion when the urban area is studied. A method for predicting air pollution among the buildings has not been developed because of the complications of turbulence, although it has been investigated by many researchers. It is difficult to apply empirical data obtained from experiments to predict air pollution because the flow simulated in the wind tunnel is different from the natural wind. In this project, pollutant concentration among buildings will be measured, and the turbulence statistics of airflow will be measured with LDV. Then the relation between the concentration and airflow structure will be investigated. In addition, the dependence of the concentration on air stability, and the arrangement of buildings and roads will be investigated. Numerical simulation of the flow field and the dispersion field will be carried out. The final objective is to establish a simplified equation for predicting the concentration considering the convection and diffusion of particles. This the method of protecting against air pollution can be proposed at the city plan or city design stage, and the healthy life of human beings can be maintained.
When the research target is inside house items, an IEQ (Indoor Environmental Quality) model to help design of the indoor environment quality will be developed, in order to generate comfortable, safe and clean indoor environments. The model is proposed after investigating from three aspects: the physical environment of the fluid field, the thermal and humidity fields, the chemical environment of materials of inorganic compounds and volatile organic compounds, etc., and the microbe environment of Mold, ticks and fungus.
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