Nuno M. M. Ramos

Nuno M. M. Ramos
University of Porto | UP · Faculty of Engineering

PhD

About

157
Publications
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2,373
Citations

Publications

Publications (157)
Conference Paper
A necessidade de reduzir os gases do efeito estufa, especialmente o dióxido de carbono, implica grandes desafios para adaptar e construir os edifícios de forma eficiente, visando a redução do consumo energético e o uso de materiais verdes de baixo impacto ambiental. O desafio inclui a melhoria do desempenho térmico, mas muitos dos componentes utili...
Article
Purpose The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the contradictions inherent to balconies. Despite the attention given to these architectural elements on that moment, there is a knowledge gap concerning the preferences and expectations of the inhabitants in relation to them. For this reason, this paper aims to conduct a critical literature review of the p...
Article
Full-text available
Energy performance-based contracts (EPCs) offer a promising solution for enhancing the energy performance of buildings, which is an overarching step towards achieving Net Zero Carbon Buildings, addressing climate change and improving occupants’ comfort. Despite their potential, their execution is constrained by difficulties that hinder their diffus...
Article
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The European Union must enhance energy efficiency in its building stock, given that buildings account for up to 40% of the EU's energy consumption. Currently, more than 85% of buildings have been in use for over two decades, with at least 75% lacking energy efficiency. Only 10% of the building stock achieves 'A' or 'B' ratings in energy performance...
Article
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Several studies of infrared reflective materials used on opaque envelopes have shown that their application can reduce the surface temperature and the cooling energy needs of buildings and help mitigate the urban heat island effect. Some of these studies were carried out by incorporating near-infrared (NIR) reflective materials on new buildings or...
Article
The configuration of balconies can affect the indoor environmental performance of dwellings, but there is not enough knowledge regarding how a balcony simultaneously impacts all the parameters of indoor environmental quality (IEQ). Therefore, this study aims to evaluate, for the first time, the impacts of different balcony configurations on IEQ. A...
Conference Paper
Nowadays, climate change demands the improvement of the building envelope, aiming at reducing energy consumption and increasing service life. The External Thermal Insulation Composite Systems (ETICS) can significantly contribute to achieving this purpose, but their durability is affected by surface temperature variation and extreme values. The symp...
Conference Paper
One of the challenges of climate change in the building sector is related to the durability of materials, i.e., the resistanc e to degradation due to weathering over time. Also, the application of new products and systems in building faça des can contribute to a reduction of the building service life when a knowledge gap is stated. As such, the dur...
Conference Paper
Sustainability is a major concern in all societal sectors, particularly civil construction and engineering. Hence, searching for new solutions that potentiate the reuse of building materials can be a key factor in achieving this important goal. These newly developed solutions should comprise mechanical, hygrothermal, thermal and durability properti...
Conference Paper
The need to improve energy efficiency of the building stock has led to a continuous increase in the implementation of exterior thermal insulation systems, such as ETICS. Progressively, these systems are being applied with darker colours, increasing the concern for hygrothermal behaviour and durability. Despite the significant developed studies, ver...
Conference Paper
High reflectance materials constitute an attractive idea to reduce cooling loads, which is crucial for attaining the Nearly Zero Energy Buildings goal, also presenting the benefit of broadening the range of colours applicable in building facades. The EnReflect project intended to re-design envelope systems by increasing their solar reflectance thro...
Chapter
The continuous innovation in construction introduces new materials and components that often cannot be analysed with standard testing techniques. Moreover, the lack of information on reference values may prevent the adequate interpretation of the test results. This chapter is focused on the application of innovative in-situ tests that address non-s...
Article
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Physical models and probabilistic applications often guide the study and characterization of natural phenomena in engineering. Such is the case of the study of air change rates (ACHs) in buildings for their complex mechanisms and high variability. It is not uncommon for the referred applications to be costly and impractical in both time and computa...
Article
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Digital twins (DTs) are one of the latest technology trends in all industries. However, DT development in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry is still in its infancy. Digital twins have been proposed as tools that can be applied to several challenges in various areas of the built environment. However, their widespread use...
Article
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Assessing singular elements that constitute the air barrier of a building envelope is quite unfeasible in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The study of these solutions through this particular scope is often overlooked. Two major aspects contribute to it: the complexity of the relationships between elements and the reduced embodied impact of these mater...
Article
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The growing development of digital building twins (DBT) is an opportunity for deepening the control and management of energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality (IEQ). DBT will demand the deployment of many sensors, and low-cost solutions are the only way to achieve that. In this study, low-cost Arduino-compatible sensors were tested consid...
Article
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Passive cooling of buildings under sunlight can be achieved by enhanced coating reflectance. Embedding micro/nano-sized objects, such as nanoparticles, in a lossless material like a polymer, may serve the purpose of reflecting the desired spectrum. The knowledge of the behavior of pigments in the infrared region is therefore a critical factor in fo...
Conference Paper
This study analyses the reflectance of rough high reflective finishing coatings, measured with and without integrating spheres. Integrating spheres used for special reflective coatings affect rough surface reflectance values confirming the indication about the applicability of the ASTM E903.
Article
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Energy efficiency and indoor air quality are frequently-two conflicting objectives when establishing the air change rate (ACH) of a dwelling. In Europe, the northern countries have a clear focus on energy conservation, leading to an obvious awareness of the importance of airtightness, which translates into a high level of regulation and implementat...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Nos últimos anos, a reabilitação energética do edificado existente tem vindo a ocupar uma posição central na indústria da Construção, com várias diretivas europeias e nacionais a focarem o tópico em busca de sustentabilidade e objetivos económicos. De forma semelhante, a importância do Building Information Modelling (BIM) tem vindo a crescer nas co...
Conference Paper
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Nos últimos anos, a investigação em torno da classificação automática de materiais construtivos tem vindo a crescer em importância, graças aos seus comprovados benefícios no apoio à gestão de obra. Na sua maioria, trabalhos anteriores focados neste âmbito têm requerido a realização sistemática de levantamentos fotográficos em obra, por forma a supl...
Article
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The application of nanomaterials in the construction field is allowing the development of smart, green, durable and more efficient buildings. Among the most widely researched nanomaterials are nanosized cool pigments, which are being enforced to achieve thermal and energy-efficient façades, with the development of high reflectance and retro-reflect...
Article
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For more than a decade, the European Union has been implementing an ambitious energy policy focused on reducing CO2 emissions, increasing the use of renewable energy and improving energy efficiency. This paper investigates the factors that hinder the application of renewable energy technologies (RETs) in existing university buildings in Spain and P...
Article
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In contrast with structural engineering, where the focus for design is on extreme values, for the proper assessment and modelling of air change rates in natural ventilation and infiltration, one must use the full range of input variables. Most of the modelling in infiltration research relies on hourly datasets for air infiltration balance. This con...
Conference Paper
The new environmental agreement between the World Nations aims to reduce the human impact on the environment. The mitigation process passes through the efforts to create a smart and green environment, mainly reducing the cities ́ energy deficiency and fossil fuel dependence in the transportation, industries, and building sectors. In the European Un...
Article
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The widespread application of innovative thermal enhanced façade solutions requires an adequate durability evaluation. The present work intends to assess the durability of a new aerogel cement-based rendering system through the adaptation of different accelerated aging cycles, such as heating–freezing, freeze–thawing, and heat–cold. Several mechani...
Conference Paper
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Facing the current pursuit for energy efficiency in the Construction industry, as well as the increase in Building Information Modelling (BIM) related practices, the present paper proposes a methodology to enhance the as-is BIM energy analysis (AIBEA) process, aiming to ease the energy retrofit of the existing building stock and allow for increased...
Article
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Near-infrared (NIR) reflective materials are being developed for mitigating building cooling needs. Their use contributes to broadening the range of colours, responding to the urban aesthetic demand without compromising the building performance. Despite the increase in NIR reflective pigments investigation, there is still a knowledge gap in their a...
Article
Full-text available
Silica-aerogel is one of the nanomaterials that contributes to increasing the thermal properties, due to its high porosity and low density, and also low thermal conductivity. The development of innovative thermal renderings is a current trend, but their impact on the hygrothermal performance of façade systems requires additional investigation. The...
Article
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Social housing represents a part of the whole building stock with a high risk of energy poverty, and it should be treated as a priority in renovation strategies, due to its potential for improvement and the need to fight that risk. Renovation actions are currently designed based on patterns that have been shown to be disparate from the reality of s...
Article
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Purpose This paper aims to further the discussion on Building Information Modelling (BIM) legal requirements, providing a framework with key energy parameters capable of supporting the Appointing Party in the definition of the Exchange Information Requirements (EIR) for a BIM project appointment. The EIR is described in ISO-19650–1:2018 as a fundam...
Poster
Na área da construção, a cor é geralmente vista como uma propriedade estética. Com as crescentes necessidades associadas à sustentabilidade na construção, a cor da fachada tornou-se um fator relevante no consumo de energia e na durabilidade. Determinados nanopigmentos podem permitir que cores escuras apresentem uma absorção mais baixa no espectro d...
Article
Full-text available
Automated Construction worker activity classification has the potential to not only benefit the worker performance in terms of productivity and safety, but also the overall project management and control. The activity-level knowledge and indicators that can be extracted from this process may support project decision making, aiding in project schedu...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Adicionar "dimensões" ou informação a modelos BIM tem o potencial de ampliar a compreensão sobre um projeto de construção. As dimensões BIM retratam a forma como esta metodologia é aplicada a todo o ciclo de vida da construção, nomeadamente: 4D (temporal); 5D (financeira); 6D (sustentabilidade); 7D (gestão das instalações); para além das três dimen...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Nos últimos anos, apesar da crescente necessidade de obter de forma precisa e automática modelos BIM semanticamente enriquecidos de edifícios existentes, atualmente, nenhum software permite a passagem direta de nuvens de pontos para BIM. De facto, apesar de recente software permitir a importação de nuvens de pontos para ambientes BIM, o processo de...
Article
Residential indoor environment quality (IEQ) is not fully known, particularly in Southern European countries. In this study, a room-level analysis was performed in forty-two rooms of twelve flats, selected from six buildings located in Porto, Portugal. Each room was monitored for approximately three weeks during the spring. The average monitored va...
Article
In Portugal, residential buildings commonly have their ventilation strategy changed after commissioning. This occurs due to the building managers' willingness to reduce shared costs with the electricity needed for fan operation. However, this option is not technically supported, and the effects of such a strategy on indoor air quality-related to hu...
Article
Hygric properties of porous building materials are important for hygrothermal analysis. Their experimental determination is however not always reliable, shown by the discrepant results from different laboratories on the same materials. In this study, a recent round robin campaign initiated by KU Leuven (Belgium) and participated in by eight institu...
Article
Full-text available
Balconies are an ancient architectural archetype that are being increasingly considered in multi-family buildings of high-density cities. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of the impacts of balcony types on the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and energy consumption of dwellings. Of the reviewed studies, 69% were published during...
Article
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A full characterization of a building air leakage is labour intensive. As results of laboratory and mock-up experimentation rarely portray in situ conditions, the assessment of real case studies bring added value. Still, the results of experimentation of the latter face more challenges than the former. In this work a full quantitative and qualitati...
Article
The airtightness of buildings has gained relevance in the last decade. The spread of the regulatory frameworks, the demand of stricter requirements, schemes for testing and quality control, the creation of airtightness databases and its analysis, is proof of this reality. The present review encompasses schemes developed in Europe and North America...
Conference Paper
The increase of the durability of building materials and components presents great importance since it contributes to a more sustainable environment by increasing its service life. The development of new building materials and technologies with improved thermal characteristics, such as ETICS with high reflectance coatings, contributes to meet the t...
Article
Full-text available
Southern European countries have milder climatic conditions that differ from their colder northern counterparts, which greatly influence indoor ventilation strategies. The relation between a building’s airtightness and the air change rates remains a topic to be fully tackled in these countries, since natural ventilation is very frequent. In this wo...
Article
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In recent years, the demand for accurate, clear and easy-understandable information has been steadily rising within the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry's stakeholders. Despite this, a sizeable portion of this industry still considers the traditional approach to Construction Engineering, disregarding major innovations and t...
Article
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The development of nearly zero energy buildings (nZEB) is a goal being set for many countries for the next years. In order to achieve that goal, on-site energy generation is needed, and the use of photovoltaic and storage systems is a possible strategy. Hence, the objective of this work is to evaluate the impact that occupant behaviour has on the b...
Article
Full-text available
The solar reflectance has a significant role in the thermal behaviour and surface temperature of ETICS finishing coats. Incomplete information of solar reflectance of ETICS with nanopigments can sometimes difficult their adequate selection. In this work, the solar reflectance of different ETICS finishing coats was measured using two distinct method...
Article
Full-text available
The increasing interest in the use of a wide range of colours in buildings, especially dark colours, may lead to the early degradation of the façades, compromising their aesthetic and thermal performance. On the other hand, the incorporation of nanopigments with high reflectance properties can contribute to reducing the absorption of solar radiatio...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The review of the state of the art aims to relate studies already carried out with a new research project, listing gaps in the past results, renewing the methodologies, even as examine the behaviour of the statement over time, avoid the currently carried out by a narrative or "convenience" method [1]. As a way of changing this panorama, the present...
Article
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The thermal comfort retrofitting of existing transport stations is an opportunity to increase the interest in the use of public transportation while improving the performance of the building, and consequently reduce the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of this study is to implement an innovative methodology to evaluate and i...
Article
An intelligent building has to know the specificities of the occupants and determine their drivers to perform actions so that it can optimize the building operation. Five windows of different rooms of the same dwelling were analysed in-depth to understand the specificities and variations of occupants’ behaviour. Logistic regressions were used as a...
Article
Thermal mortars are a trend in the construction industry in recent years, owing to the required decrease of the thermal transmission of building envelopes. The high porosity of thermal mortars leads to permeability values that can affect their durability since it creates more favourable conditions for the penetration of aggressive agents. Water is...
Article
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Laser scanning, as a rising topic within the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry, has been increasing both in importance and practice as a means of gathering in-situ geometric data. Several studies have covered possible applications of this technology, from construction monitoring to damage assessment, with Building Informatio...
Article
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The increase of the thermal resistance of building envelopes is a result from the growing demand of energy efficiency. Several new materials and systems emerged in recent years as an answer to that growing need. Thermal mortars applied in thermal rendering systems are an example of how the research community and the building industry try to tackle...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The reliable determination of the hygric properties of porous building materials is important. In earlier round robin campaigns large discrepancies of measured hygric properties were found among different labs. Later studies indicated that differences in lab conditions and more importantly, personnel’s operation procedures and data processing metho...
Article
Improving the comfort of public transport buildings is a mean to arouse the public interest in its use. The available studies concerning transport stations with semi-outdoor configurations barely emphasize local thermal discomfort. Generally, these studies produce a somewhat superficial approach to the subject, relying on the direct application of...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Despite the increasing availability of information in digital databases of scientific articles, in most cases, this information needs to be systematised, since they are currently carried out by a narrative or "convenience" method. The present meta-analysis proposes an observation of the possible universe for the research of the subject, based on th...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In the last few years, although there has been an increasing need to accurately acquire structured and semantically enriched 3D digital models of existing buildings in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry, currently, no software has ensured the direct shift from point clouds to complete enriched BIM models. In fact, despite...
Article
The European Union aims to achieve a nearly zero energy balance in buildings by 2020. The present study takes into consideration the passive systems of the building, energy demand, and energy generated by the on-site photovoltaic and storage system, and how they interact in different scenarios. The study also considers the energy demand from the gr...
Conference Paper
O acabamento de superfície dos ETICS é normalmente efetuado com revestimentos de cor clara de modo a reduzir as solicitações decorrentes de elevadas variações de temperatura. De modo a incrementar a paleta de cores utilizável nestes acabamentos, os fabricantes têm desenvolvido revestimentos com adição de pigmentos refletantes que permitam reduzir a...
Chapter
The present book was the result of an extensive bibliographical research in order to collect information on the state of the art of intelligent buildings and the behaviour of their occupants.
Book
This book presents the state of the art of two areas: intelligent residential buildings and the behaviour of their occupants. These areas need to be treated together in order to develop new concepts for buildings, which are more efficient, more comfortable and more healthy. The concept of intelligent building is associated with the creation of a ma...
Article
Full-text available
The importance of a good indoor environment for peoples’ health and wellbeing is nowadays clearly established. Besides enhancing the wellbeing of building occupants and helping decrease the occurrence of building related illness, a good indoor environment can also lead to a decrease in worker complaints and absenteeism. This paper presents the resu...
Article
Full-text available
Throughout history, it has always been recognised that the spaces in-between in dwellings have the advantage of working as environmental buffer spaces. The aim of this paper is to provide a literature review of the different spaces in-between in dwellings – balconies, shaded balconies and glazed balconies - and their impacts on comfort and on energ...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Nos últimos anos, a necessidade de transmitir informação de uma forma precisa, clara e de fácil compreensão tem vindo a aumentar na indústria da Arquitetura, Engenharia e Construção (AEC). Neste sentido, recentes tecnologias BIM (Building Information Modeling) podem ajudar a resolver esta necessidade. No entanto, apesar do aumento em popularidade e...
Article
The development of more energy efficient and smarter buildings must include the perspective of the occupants. The knowledge of occupant behaviour motivations is paramount for the design and implementation of intelligent control systems in buildings. This article presents a methodology to investigate the motivations for relevant actions in dwellings...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
One of the main factors influencing building airtightness is the construction typology. As building environmental performance requirements raise so does the prevalence of less conventional envelope construction systems as modular structural insulated panels (SIPs) buildings. In this paper, the airtightness performance of a constructive solution bas...