Charalampos C. Baniotopoulos

Circular economy continues to gain momentum in the field of construction. Notwithstanding the rapid attention this concept is gathering within the construction industry, a clear framework to facilitate its implementation in Saudi Arabia has yet to be developed. This paper aims to tackle this knowledge gap by proposing a framework for CE implementat...

The rise of high-rise vertical farms in cities is helping to mitigate urban constraints on crop production, including land, transportation, and yield requirements. However, separate issues arise regarding energy consumption. The utilisation of wind energy resources in high-rise vertical farms is therefore on the agenda. In this study, we investigat...

The construction industry continues to play a significant role in the economic development of most nations in the world. However, the construction sector still follows the ‘linear’ ‘take–make–dispose’ industrial model that, having benefited development, plays a major factor in the depletion of resources, environmental deterioration, and the generat...

The implementation of a circular economy (CE) in the construction sector faces several challenges that hinder its progress. Research on the awareness, key enablers, and potential benefits of CE in Saudi Arabia’s construction of mega-projects that could contribute and promote a successful transition is still at its early stages and remains limited....

This open access book gathers the proceedings of the 4th International Conference “Coordinating Engineering for Sustainability and Resilience” (CESARE) & Midterm Conference of CircularB “Implementation of Circular Economy in the Built Environment”, held in Timișoara, Romania, on May 29-31, 2024, as part of the COST Action CA21103. The volume repres...

There is a growing emphasis in current global construction sector for the incorporating of sustainability ideas into design and construction practices. This present paper investigates the considerable impact of using Building Information Modelling (BIM) techniques to address sustainability and financial concerns in a residential project in the King...

The concept of circular economy (CE) nowadays garners considerable attention as strategy for resource management and waste reduction. The principles of circular economy have emerged as a promising framework for minimizing environmental impacts while maximizing resource efficiency across the entire life cycle of a building. To effectively assess and...

The consistent growth of the construction sector during the last decades has generated massive waste that severely impacts the environment. Globally, construction activities generate around 30% of the overall waste annually, and the numbers are expected to increase due to population growth projections and the need for infrastructure developments. A...

This paper presents the development of a benchmark vertical farm that could potentially enable the sustainable development of urban and rural areas. The investigation seeks to tackle global issues linked to sustainability development goals such as zero hunger, affordable clean energy, industry innovation and infrastructure, amongst others. Vertical...

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a digitalisation tool that is widely adopted in construction industry. It is a three-dimensional digital replica of asset(s) such as buildings, which contain architectural information and building details (e.g. dimensions, materials, parts, and components). It has evolved from 2D CAD models (or blueprints) in...

Floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs) demonstrate very promising potential in unlocking the plentiful wind resource in deep-water oceans. Meanwhile, the combination of the harsh marine environment and strong dynamics complicate the long-term deterioration of FOWT-supporting towers, specifically the escalating corrosion fatigue (C-F) coupled deter...

The construction sector has been subjected to scrutiny due to its propensity for waste generation and the extensive utilisation of finite natural resources. In response to these concerns, a transition towards a novel conceptual framework known as circular economy (CE) has been advocated. Nevertheless, the integration of CE principles within the con...

This paper investigates the mechanical properties and softening extent of friction stir welded (FSW) 6061-T6 aluminium alloy butt joints through experimental studies and theoretical analyses. A total of 138 monotonic tensile coupon tests and 46 Vickers hardness tests, cut from 5-, 8-, 12, 16-mm-thick welded plates using various welding speed, tool...

The response to the climate emergency requires solutions that address multiple sustainability targets, which could be conducted by merging scientific research from areas that have traditionally evolved separately. This investigation presents advances in that direction by studying a building prototype designated for vertical farming, which enables t...

This paper aims to analyze the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of floating offshore wind farms from a probabilistic point of view. Understanding and addressing the uncertainty associated with the main parameters that influence the wind energy generated by a wind farm during its lifetime is crucial for the economic evaluation of offshore wind energy...

Offshore wind farms are great options for addressing the world’s energy and climate change challenges, as well as meeting rising energy demand while taking environmental and economic impacts into account. Floating wind turbines, in specific, depict the next horizon in the sustainable renewable energy industry. In this study, a life-cycle cost analy...

Aging steel bridges constitute a significant portion of transportation infrastructure, requiring more efficient and intelligent maintenance to enhance their sustainability. This work presents a digital twin (DT) framework for the intelligent maintenance of aging steel bridges subject to time-dependent deterioration, by fully exploiting the predicti...

The adoption of circular economy (CE) holds significant potential to mitigate the challenges posed by the conventional linear economic model. The building sector in Saudi Arabia continues experiencing rapid growth, often marked by a consistent annual rise in the number of projects. The incorporation of CE principles into this expansion presents opp...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now playing a crucial role not only in everyday life, evidenced by the booming application of Large Language Models (LLMs) such as the Generative Pretrained Transformer (GPT), but also in its potential to transform traditional industries like civil engineering. This work examines the application of novel AI tools to...

Several challenges are associated with implementing Circular Economy (CE) in buildings. These include legal, technical, social, behavioural, and economic barriers. As a result of these challenges, Building Information Modeling (BIM) has emerged as a tool to address them, supporting the development of digital models for sustainable end-of-life and o...

The building sector is a major contributor to global resource consumption and waste generation. The circular economy (CE) concept offers a promising alternative to the traditional linear economy by promoting the reuse, remanufacture, repair, and recycling of materials and products. However, the adoption of CE in the building sector faces several ba...

The aim of this paper is to analyse the steel bearing structure of a combined offshore wind and wave energy exploitation system. More specifically, the investigation focuses on the effect of the Wave Energy Converters (WECs) on the bearing capacity of the Offshore Wind Turbine (OWT) to which they are attached by steel arms. Initially, the power abs...

The aim of the present paper is to assess the performance of the retrofit of existing R/C buildings with the use of steel and composite systems. Specifically, the influence of the applied retrofit method as well as the selection of the performance level for design are being examined through their impact on the retrofit cost and on the estimated cos...

This paper reports the development and validation of an advanced FE model that can predict the overall behaviour and failure modes of blind bolted T‐stub to unfilled tube (UT), concrete‐filled tube (CFT) and foam‐filled tube (FFT) joints in tension. The joints investigated were made of S355 Square Hollow Sections (SHS) either empty or with concrete...

The Modular Energy Island (MEI) offers a promising solution to unlock the plentiful Aeolian source at deep‐waters. Meanwhile, high‐speed wind and strong corrosivity in the harsh marine environment, along with increasing dynamics, escalate the corrosion‐fatigue (C‐F) deterioration issue of steel wind turbine towers on MEIs notably. Thus, a better un...

Building information modelling (BIM) continues gaining popularity in engineering construction as it helps lower the life cycle cost and ensure sustainability. The primary aim of this study was to delve into the effectiveness of BIM implementation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) construction industry and understand the benefits, challenges, and...

Citation: Kurniawati, I.; Beaumont, B.; Varghese, R.; Kostadinović, D.; Sokol, I.; Hemida, H.; Alevras, P.; Baniotopoulos, C. Conceptual Design of a Floating Modular Energy Island for Energy Independency: A Case Study in Crete. Energies 2023, 16, 5921. Abstract: This paper aims to investigate the development of a floating artificial sustainable ene...

In the present paper the behavior and the structural performance of steel beam to column connections is investigated for an innovative type of low-rise prefabricated modular building system. The load bearing system is composed of lightweight steel frame members connected with double-shell composite walls that play the role of smart façade elements....

The present paper studies the structural behavior and the necessary design aspects of steel and structural glazing composite buildings in areas with high seismic risk. In recent years, the great progress in the design of specialized types of glass structures reinforced with metal frames due to their high architectural impact created the need of add...

The design of composite structural members is today the dominant way of constructing buildings and bridges in the modern world as well as in the developing world. These structures, due to the performance of the two most popular building materials into the same composite section, i.e. steel and reinforced concrete, can do increasingly satisfy the st...

The building industry is one of the largest consumers of materials resources and significant contributors to global waste. Applying core principles of circular economy (CE) could significantly help the environment by reducing waste and decreasing the life cycle cost of buildings. Several strategies to implement the concept of CE in buildings includ...

The aim of the present study is to assess the performance of a reinforced concrete (RC) building been retrofitted with a new precast insulated steel and concrete composite sandwich wall. The applied retrofitting method, as well as the selection of the performance level for design have been studied with reference to their impact on the retrofit cost...

Building information modelling (BIM) has become an efficient tool to contribute more effectively to achieving sustainability development goals. BIM utilities have progressively revealed efficient environments to share data amongst stakeholders. The present paper aims to evaluate levels of awareness around BIM capabilities amongst engineers and proj...

Obtaining the optimum integration of design policies is the target in net-zero energy buildings. This is designed to solve the energy operation problems in a specific building. A multi-objective optimization method is proposed in this paper for net-zero energy building operation optimization to achieve the best design solution among Pareto set solu...

The need for embedding sustainability in construction development contributed to the introduction of Building information Modelling (BIM) to be adopted into the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) process. Through BIM, project information used during design can be shared to estimate the project’s end of life costs. LCC enables to assess the overall cost of an as...

Experiences of wind turbines (WT) shape public perception and acceptance of the technology, influencing government policy, deployment, and land-use policies of wind turbines. This paper attempts to find changes in public perceptions over the last three decades and differences between experts and the public over different land-use options. A semi-st...

A former study on wind turbine tower collapse incidences throughout the past 40 years revealed that among the various types the buckling failure was the most catastrophic as led to collapse of tubular tower shell structures. As the modern harvesting of wind energy is usually performed by wind turbine towers being cylindrical shells of thin walls, t...

During the last decades, wind energy has been developed from an emerging technique of yielding sustainable energy into a robustly established technology due to its renewable, sustainable, and clean features [...]

The buckling behaviour and resistances of extruded 7A04-T6 high-strength aluminium alloy rectangular hollow section (RHS) columns under axial compression are reported in this paper. Nineteen RHS columns with member relative slenderness of 0.44–2.70 and cross-sections of Class 2–4 were conducted. Finite element (FE) models were developed and verifie...

Keywords: High-strength aluminium alloy Square and rectangular hollow sections Three-point bending Finite element analysis Experiments Continuous strength method (CSM) A B S T R A C T High-strength aluminium alloys would further reduce the cross-section dimensions, and consequently avoid inaccessible extrusion process for great cross-section member...

This paper is aimed at improving the maintenance and end-of-life steps in the associated Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of barge-type floating wind turbines to reduce their environmental impact. Maintenance and end-of-life steps are given special attention since these phases have received only cursory focus in previous LCA studies. Different maintenan...

The SHOWTIME research project aimed to develop a steel hybrid solution for onshore wind turbine towers using a lattice structure for the lower portion of the tower and a tubular upper portion. The solution is targeted at tall onshore applications (hub height 120 – 220 meters).

Offshore wind energy is a rapidly maturing renewable energy technology that is poised to play an important role in future energy systems. The respective advances refer among others to the monopile foundation that is frequently used to support wind turbines in the marine environment. In the present research paper, the structural response of tall win...

Wind power is a substantial resource to assist global efforts on the decarbonization of energy. The drive to increase capacity has led to ever-increasing blade tip heights and lightweight, slender towers. These structures are subject to a variety of environmental loads that give rise to vibrations with potentially catastrophic consequences, making...

The vulnerability of buildings faces further scrutiny as gaps in design, construction, operation, and maintenance remain. Although there has been noticeable progress in the field, the frequency and magnitude of building damage during natural events highlight the fact that sustainable infrastructure has not yet reached all targets. In this study, su...

The intensive increase of global warming every year affects our world negatively and severely. The use of renewable energy sources has gained importance in reducing and eliminating the effect of global warming. To this end, new technologies are being developed to facilitate the use of these resources. One of these technological developments is the...

Wind turbines (WT) have a known impact on urban and landscape aesthetics. Experiences of WT shape public perception and acceptance of the technology. This research aims to analyze the perception of experts versus non-experts (public) in the field of wind energy generation. Experts, as members of society, have an impact on social perception of renew...

In a conventional railway system, timber sleepers have been widely used for ballasted railway tracks to carry passengers and transport goods. However, due to the limited availability of reliable and high-quality timbers, and restrictions on deforestation, the “interspersed” approach is adopted to replace ageing timbers with concrete sleepers. The r...

The blind bolted end-plate connection to concrete-filled steel tube column (BECFT) composite frame with buckling-restrained braces (BRBs, BRB-BECFT) is a novel dual structure system that combines advantages of fast assembly ability for BECFT connections, great energy dissipation capacity for BRBs coupled with BECFT connections and superior gravity...

Presently, railway track buckling, caused by extreme heat, is a serious issue that causes a huge loss of assets in railway systems. The increase in rail temperature can induce a compression force in the continuous welded rail (CWR) and this may cause track buckling when the compression force reaches the buckling strength. It is important to ensure...

This paper adopts both explicit and implicit finite element methods in a specialist package LS-DYNA to investigate the nonlinear, dynamic response of a long span shell roof structure when subjected to blast loading. Parametric studies have been carried out on blast loaded laminated glass plates with reference to experimental results obtained by Eur...

One of the most significantly deteriorated causes of bridge bearing failure is the resonance under various vibration conditions. It is important for bridge engineers to prevent the phenomenon, also called resonance, occurs to provide large amplitude vibrations when the bridge is being forced to vibrate at its natural frequency. This may lead to fai...

In the present paper the dynamic response of tall offshore monopile steel wind turbine towers under wind, wave and current during the erection stage is studied. In particular , in the present paper the effect of current-wave-wind interaction as dynamic loading on the dynamic response of offshore wind turbine towers is for first time studied experim...

Tubular steel towers are the most common design solution for supporting medium-to-high-rise wind turbines. Notwithstanding, historical failure incidence records reveal buckling modes as a common type of failure of shell structures. It is thus necessary to revisit the towers’ performance against bending-compression interactions that could unchain bu...

The use of grout-filled double-skin tubular (GFDST) sections in civil, bridge and offshore engineering applications is rapidly increasing. The design of such composite members is not directly covered by design codes, despite recent research studies investigating their performance, proposing design equations or modifying existing codified methods. A...

Offshore wind energy is a rapidly maturing renewable energy technology that is poised to play an important role in future energy systems. The respective advances refer among others to the monopile foundation that is frequently used to support wind turbines in the marine environment. In the present research paper, the structural response of tall win...

The effect of free stream turbulence on a DU96w180 wind turbine aerofoil is investigated through wind tunnel experiments. Wind turbine blades experience large scale, high intensity turbulent inflow during their service life. However, the effect of turbulence is normally neglected in the assessment of their aerodynamic performance. This is normally...

Increasing needs for taller wind turbines with bigger capacities, intended for places with high wind velocities or at higher altitudes, have led to new technologies in the wind energy industry. A recently introduced structural system for onshore wind turbine towers is the hybrid steel tower. Comprehension of the environmental response of this hybri...

One of the main challenges of urban wind energy harvesting is the understanding of the flow characteristics where urban wind turbines are to be installed. Among viable locations within the urban environment, high-rise buildings are particularly promising due to the elevated height and relatively undisturbed wind conditions. Most research studies on...

Policies on sustainability of buildings have been progressively gaining importance throughout the world. Turkey is a part of such international movements and is now striving to address its energy performance, by reducing emissions of contaminants derived from energy consumption of buildings, and through the protection of the environment. The presen...

Natural fiber based filaments are economic, environmental friendly and sustainable which enable them to be applied in the production of novel composite materials. This research aims to produce 3D printed filaments composed of Poly lactic acid (PLA) reinforced with 5 wt%, 10 wt% and 15wt% of coconut fiber (CF) and coconut shell powder (CSP). These f...

This paper presents a robust repowering approach to the structural response of tubular steel wind turbine towers enhanced by internal stiffening rings. First, a structural response simulation model was validated by comparison with the existing experimental data. This was then followed with a mesh density sensitivity analysis to obtain the optimum e...

Stiffeners can be utilised to enhance the strength of thin-walled wind turbine towers in engineering practise, thus, structural performance of wind turbine towers by means of different stiffening schemes should be compared to explore the optimal structural enhancement method. In this paper two alternative stiffening methods, employing horizontal or...