Natale Arcuri

University of Calabria | Università della Calabria · Department of Mechanical, Energy and Management Engineering

The evaluation of the environmental impacts of a living wall (LW) system cannot leave out the effects on the buildings' sustainability during its life cycle. Consequently, to consider the embodied impacts of all the components, an LCA of the whole system is recommended. Therefore , this paper was targeted to evaluate the environmental performances...

Submit your article to the “Advancements in Mitigation Strategies and Regulations for Mold Growth in Building Materials Affecting Indoor Environments” Frontiers collection. This research topic aims to improve indoor environmental quality and occupant health by advancing strategies to mitigate mold growth in building materials. By exploring innovat...

The global construction industry significantly contributes to energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, necessitating immediate action for sustainable development. Recognizing the impact of buildings on emissions, the United Nations has set ambitious energy-related goals for 2030. Retrofitting buildings emerges as a strategic method for redu...

This research delves into the foundational elements of thermal comfort, crucial alongside visual comfort, acoustic comfort, and air quality for ensuring the quality and sustainability of living environments. With increasing recognition of thermal comfort’s implications across various human activities, from energy management for efficiency to consid...

To achieve sustainable cities and communities, it is necessary to decarbonize existing buildings. Actions need to be taken to reduce the buildings’ energy demand and ensure that the low remaining demand is met by energy produced from renewable sources. This leads to Net Zero Energy Buildings (NZEBs), whose impact on energy consumption is zero or po...

Historical and cultural heritage must be preserved and protected from deterioration. In particular, the integrity of structures is threatened by inadequate maintenance, exceptional events (such as fires and floods), and exposure to increasing air pollution. In addition, indoor environments may provide favorable conditions for colonizing harmful age...

Biomass plays a vital role in broadening the energy portfolio and reducing reliance on traditional fossil fuels. Combining biomass with natural gas-powered combined cycle plants offers an opportunity to improve biomass conversion efficiency. This study aims to conduct a comprehensive technical and economic analysis, comparing two configurations of...

Building information modeling (BIM) is a process for managing the construction information model. The possibility of managing very complex construction orders using information processes has made the work of designers both easier and more productive. In this research, a new process of “assisted design” was implemented for self-assembling temporary...

In the REPowerEU plan, the European Commission has envisaged a rapid reduction in dependence on fossil fuels, an acceleration of the green transition and has shown its willingness to tackle the climate crisis by resorting to greater and better use of renewable energy sources. Furthermore, from 2035 the “Fit for 55” climate package aims to reduce em...

Research on nearly zero-energy buildings has addressed mainly the aspects of energy saving or technical and economic optimization, while some studies have been conducted on comfort and indoor air quality. However, the potential problems that may arise in low-energy buildings during the operational phase, and especially the risk of fungal growth, wh...

In-situ measurement of wall thermal conductance is a complex task due to the transient conditions resulting from the variability of environmental factors. The literature offers numerous methods, each based on different assumptions, which are not always valid. This paper aims to compare the accuracy and test duration of the main methods by testing t...

The need for efficient buildings to contribute to sustainable development has led to the proposal of goals and regulations in different countries linked to net zero energy objectives, following approaches specific to their regions. Such regulations are not yet developed in a developing country such as Panama. Thus, this study develops the first fra...

Heat pumps in buildings allow for the limiting of CO2 emissions by exploiting directly the renewable energy available in the external environment (aerothermal, hydrothermal and geothermal sources). Moreover, other renewable technologies such as active solar systems can be integrated easily into use with them. This combination not only increases the...

Natural lighting in building environments is an important aspect for the occupants' mental and physical health. Furthermore, the proper exploitation of this resource can bring energy benefits related to the reduced use of artificial lighting. This work provides some estimates of the energy that can be saved by using a lighting system that recognise...

This work involves the development of an advanced solar shading control algorithm with the aim of reducing energy requirements and improving visual comfort. The proposed control system is based on IoT devices that sense the environment and interact with it following real-time intelligence that allows adaptation to changing situations. The designed...

Bioclimatic solar greenhouses are passive solar systems of relevant interest in the building sector, as they allow the reduction of energy needs related to air-conditioning. The aim of this work is to analyze the thermal behavior of a bioclimatic solar greenhouse attached to a residential building. It is equipped with photovoltaic solar blinds (SPB...

Significant actions on the building stock are required to reduce energy consumption and emissions from buildings and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Consistently, the renovation approach of existing buildings could aim to obtain nearly Zero Energy Buildings or Net Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB). In particular, the solutions to obtain zero-energy b...

In recent years, global society has been subjected to great change due to unpredictable events such as pandemics, migrant flow, urban homeless, wars, and natural disasters. There has been an increased demand for fast and easily constructed buildings characterized by limited space and used for a limited time, modular and flexible self-assembly homes...

Lower prices for photovoltaic systems lead to the spread of building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV). In this paper, a simple method is proposed to evaluate the electrical power produced by Solar Photovoltaic Blinds (SPB). The equations allow to assess slat mutual shading and view factors and are applicable to any slat inclination, any orientation...

The ecological transition at the centre of the United Nations 2030 Agenda and the relevant EU policies are increasingly becoming an emerging issue in the political choices of most countries. It is an important challenge to ensure sustainable development and overcome the issue of energy supply. Italy produces 35% of its electricity consumption, a to...

One of the pillars of the policies undertaken to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 in the European Union is the decarbonisation of the construction sector. Massive energy renovation of existing buildings is expected in the coming years and encouraged by supporting incentives. A considerable amount of resources will be invested in this area and the...

Heat pumps combined with photovoltaic (PV) system with batteries will allow environments to be heated/cooled sustainably. The framework of this paper is a household with a boiler in which the user intends to purchase a PV-battery system and an air–water heat pump (AWHP). A procedure is defined to carry out the combined sizing of the three component...

Shading devices are used to control solar radiations that penetrate into the occupied environment through the windows with the aim of ensuring visual comfort and saving the building’s energy consumption. Venetian blinds are commonly employed for the practicality and ease of application. However, occupants often do not change slat orientation causin...

Buildings energy efficiency has a key role in achieving the objectives set in the energy-environment field. In energy renovation, the performance goal is generally defined based on design assessments, supported by simulation tools. However, due to the uncertainty relating to input variables, the actual performance of the building may be different f...

Daylight in workplaces is necessary for the psychophysical health of the occupants and, if its level is adequate, it can reduce electrical costs of artificial lighting. This study presents some realistic estimates of the electrical savings that could be achieved from artificial lighting. The scenario is to replace the classic lighting system with o...

Energy performances of an innovative Temporary Housing Unit (THU), made of natural materials and developed for the Mediterranean area, were determined. Cork panels limit winter transmission losses, whereas bio-PCMs were applied to reduce cooling needs properly. Assuming a split system for air-conditioning purposes, simulations in EnergyPlus allowed...

The thermal performances of building components require an accurate evaluation of the heat transfer processes on the internal and external surfaces. These evaluations involve the convective and the radiative heat transfer coefficients, which in actual conditions vary dynamically. Nevertheless, international standards indicate combined and steady he...

Natural and bio-based thermal insulation materials play an important role in the lifecycle impact of buildings due to their influence on the amount of energy used in indoor temperature control and the environmental impact of building debris. Among bio-based materials, cork is widespread in the Mediterranean region and is one of the bio-based materi...

The Stay-in-place (SIP) formworks technique facilitates construction scheduling and labor savings. In continental climates, traditional Insulating Concrete Formworks (ICF) are largely used to limit thermal losses; nevertheless, the internal insulating layer hinders rational exploitation of building inertia to reduce cooling demand when ICFs are use...

Crystalline silicon photovoltaics are a cardinal and well-consolidated technology for the achievement of energy efficiency goals, being installed worldwide for the production of clean electrical energy. However, their performance is strongly penalized by the thermal drift, mostly in periods of high solar radiation where solar cells reach considerab...

The refurbishment of existing buildings represents a priority target to reduce global energy consumption. An interesting solution is represented by multilayer systems made by insulating panels mounted on a suitable frame to form non-ventilated air-gaps with the existing envelopes. This solution is attractive because it allows for renewal and energy...

A novel procedure to determine the environmental quality of boilers based on the combustion entropy degradation, the pollutants emission and the device efficiency is proposed. The entropy generation due to the chemical reaction was determined and then the irreversibilities on the external environment were first quantified. Successively, the entropy...

The present invention relates to a new green roof design with specific atmospheric water harvesting systems, including fog harvesting mesh and dew collecting by PV panels, which produces greater efficiency in reducing water consumption and energy. Moreover, it could show a higher thermal impact on the building, higher efficiency in stormwater manag...

Green roofs represent a well-consolidated solution for new or existing buildings to achieve considerable energy savings. Theoretical and experimental analyses have shown that in summer the interface temperature between green and structural roofs decreases considerably when compared with traditional roofing solutions, producing a limitation of the t...

Buildings energy efficiency has a key role in achieving the objectives set in the energy-environment field. In energy renovation, the performance goal is generally defined based on design assessments, supported by simulation tools. However, due to the uncertainty relating to input variables, the actual performance of the building may be different f...

This paper presents thermal and energy analysis of a multilayer panel in bio-based cork material and natural phase change materials (PCMs) for the development of prefabricated, recyclable and energy-efficient and autonomous building modules. For this purpose, a calculation tool is developed for the dynamic simulation of the thermal and energy behav...

Low-energy buildings are generally equipped with generation systems driven by renewable sources. Regarding heating and DHW production, two choices appear appropriate: PV assisted heat pumps and biomass boilers. In this paper, by means of TRNSYS dynamic simulations, the non-renewable primary energy was determined for two buildings located in differe...

Energy efficiency is becoming a crucial target in the construction of a decarbonized society to guarantee sustainable development and tackle climate change issues. The building sector is one of the major players being responsible for a huge amount of primary energy, mostly related to heating and cooling services. Aside from intervening on the build...

Phase change materials (PCMs) are very interesting latent heat storage systems used for various thermal energy storage applications, such as in energy-conserving buildings. Both organic compounds (such as paraffins) and inorganic compounds (such as hydrated salts) were tested in this field. Since they are often heterogeneous materials because of ad...

Electrical and energy production have a noticeable water footprint, and buildings share of global energy consumption is about 40%. This study presents a comprehensive experimental analysis of different thermal impacts and water consumption of green roofs in a Mediterranean climate. The study aims to investigate the use of water directly for green r...

Glauber’s salt (sodium sulfate decahydrate) is a phase change material (PCM) with promising thermal and physical properties. Moreover, it is very interesting from an economic point of view because it is possible to recover it as a waste product after the disposal of lead batteries. Nevertheless, it is restricted in its applications because of super...

The principle behind sustainable city movements is represented by the idea of “good living”, which is the possibility of having solutions and services that allow citizens to live in an easy, simple, and enjoyable way. Policies for urban quality play a central role in the slow cities manifesto, often suggesting the use of Information and Communicati...

Solar radiation incident on photovoltaic modules only partly directly convert into electricity; the rest is converted into heat that increases the module layers’ temperature. In order to quantify both the output power and the electrical efficiency the knowledge of the temperature profile is essential. This study proposes a transient one-dimensional...

This study tackles the analysis of fixed external solar shading systems. The geometry of a building and of the shading system has been parametrically defined and a genetic optimization analysis has been carried out to identify an architectural solution that would allow the increase of energy savings, through a suitable window-to-wall ratio and an a...

Green roofs appear to be an appealing solution for sustainable constructions because they could produce different advantages for the building, especially at an energy level. Nevertheless, usually dynamic models adopted for the simulation of the green roof performances require the knowledge of several parameters, which are often difficult to estimat...

Silicon based modules have been installed since the beginning of the commercial development of the PV technology, and still represent an important share of the global PV market. However, they are penalised when cells reach high temperatures, with a worsening of the conversion efficiency due to thermal drift. Several cooling techniques have been pro...

The renovation of existing buildings represents a major challenge toward the transition to sustainable cities, being these edifices built according to principles far from the current standards, especially in those urban areas where the poor quality of structures often determines social conditions of hardship and unlivable spaces. For the refurbishm...

Glazing surfaces strongly affect the building energy balance considering heat losses, solar gains and daylighting. Appropriate operation of the screens is required to control the transmitted solar radiation, preventing internal overheating while assuring visual comfort. Consequently, in the building design phase, solar control systems have become c...

The cost-optimal analysis was pointed out in the 2010/31 European Directive as tool to evaluate the achievable building energy performance levels in function of the correspondent costs. These analyses can be carried out by a financial projection for private investors and a macroeconomic approach to establish the minimal energy performance levels. C...

The role of the industrial sector in total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and resource consumption is well-known, and many industrial activities may have a negative environmental impact. The solution to decreasing the negative effects cannot be effective without the consideration of sustainable development. There are several methods for sustainabil...

The GHGs emissions by different activities show that the main part that is 25% belongs to electricity and heat production and the industrial activities counting as 21% of total emission. About 37% of the electricity consumption in Europe belongs to manufacturing and share of industrial activities in GHGs are among 30% to 40%. The electricity produc...

Photovoltaic represents the most consolidated technology for the production of clean and renewable energy. Even though several new type of cells have been proposed, the first generation crystalline silicon is still the most used worldwide due to the reliability in long-term efficiency and yields. A main limitation is the strong dependency of the el...

Evolution of energy standards led to high-performance buildings requiring very low energy for their operation. Occupancy is the variable with the greatest impact on nearly Zero Energy Building (nZEB) energy performance because both constructive and technical characteristics have been improved over time. Occupants influence energy use in buildings a...

Buildings portion in global energy consumption is 40%, and in the building envelope, the roof is a crucial point for improving indoor temperature, especially in the last and second last floors. Studies show that green roofs can be applied to moderate roof temperature and affect the indoor temperature in summer and winter. However, the performance o...

The analysis of GHGs emissions by different activities shows that one of the main contributions (about 25%) comes from electricity and heat production. For what concerns electricity, the motor pumps used for both urban water supply and agricultural water systems represent a significant consumer. In the agricultural sector, the highest consumption c...

The GHGs emissions by different activities show that the main part that is 25% belongs to electricity and heat production and the industrial activities counting as 21% of total emission. The Global energy-related CO2 emissions increased 1.4% in 2017 and reached to 32.5 gigatonnes. In Italy, the distribution of final energy uses among the various se...

With the development of smart cities models, an electric market with variable hourly costs will be available. For a reference building-plant system with radiant emitters supplied by electric heat pumps simulated in TRNSYS 18, energy, economic and comfort evaluations have allowed to investigate on the role of the building thermal mass to manage the...

The ICF (Insulated Concrete Forms) constructions, consisting of insulating permanent formworks filled with cast-in-place reinforced concrete, are widely used in Continental climates. The present work addresses the adaptation of ICF systems to the Mediterranean climate, by evaluating through dynamic simulation the effect of certain adjustments in wa...

Efficient low consumption buildings require the building envelope to be scrupulously designed from an early stage. Passive solar technologies, such as the Trombe wall, can contribute to the reduction of the heating energy demand and, if properly operated, they can also impact the building summer behaviour. The use of such a solution has been limite...

The transfer of thermal power in reduced spaces can be attained by plate heat exchangers (PHE), making these devices suitable for different applications. The encumbrance is very limited due to the parallel plates installed with a reduced distance, so the fluids circulate in alternate manner inside the correspondent channel in a counter-current conf...

The production of greenhouse plants is one of the most intensive components in agricultural production. One of the biggest issues is winter production, due to the important energy demands for both services. The heating service is often used for the control and management of relative humidity in addition to maintaining a pre-established temperature...

In order to respect the energy savings directives, worldwide designers look toward more sustainable buildings, especially with tower configurations to reduce the footprint in urban environments. The implementation of multi-storey buildings with a massive employment of wooden materials represents a feasible solution; however, in Mediterranean areas...

Despite the EN ISO 52016-1 introduced a new and reliable hourly calculation method to evaluate thermal energy requirements, in several countries it cannot yet be used because national extensions have to be provided at a local level for the correct application of calculation methodologies. For this reason, the quasi-steady procedure by the EN ISO 52...

Widespread overbuilding, the prevalence of asphalt surfaces on green areas, and the use of building materials with low heat dissipation abilities are among the main causes of Urban Heat Islands. Within urban areas, evapotranspiration and shade from plants can significantly reduce the UHI phenomenon, help in stormwater management, and reduce buildin...