FYPs/Thesis/Journal from Higher Education Institutions in Hong Kong

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Institution Title Type Date Author(s) Abstract Link
HKUST Integrating Building Information Modeling and Internet of Things for Building Facility Management FYP 06/2019 CHAN, Sum Chau
DWIVEDY, Sampriti
In Hong Kong’s Smart City Blueprint, promoting ‘Green and Intelligent Buildings, and Energy Efficiency’ is one of the most important initiatives. HKUST, as the leading university in Hong Kong, has been working for years to build a better, smarter and greener campus. Keeping in line with HKUST’s “Sustainable Smart Campus as a Living Lab (SSC)” initiative, this project seeks to enable the Facilities Management Office to make better decisions with respect to balancing the trade-off between human thermal comfort and energy costs. This can be done by optimizing the operational controls of the existing heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems (HVAC) to the occupancy level of the facility. The research was divided into two case studies, one that focuses on occupancy prediction with the use of machine learning and the other seeks to demonstrate how building information modelling (BIM) and Internet of Things (IoT) can be used to visualize the tradeoff between user thermal comfort and energy costs.

This project also discusses a flowchart to integrate the various technologies being suggested. and identifies certain software tools that can be used to assist in the integration process, for instance Autodesk’s Forge. A web-based graphical user interface for an integrated smart facility management system was also constructed in order to provide a direction for future works on this topic.
N.A.
HKUST Optimization of Occupant Thermal Comfort and Energy Consumption in HVAC Systems Using a BIM-Supported Computational Approach FYP 06/2019 LUK, Tsz Hin
SIU, Chun Fai
This project aims to analyse thermal comfort and indoor air quality (IAQ) in a lecture theatre where the HVAC system consists of a Variable Air Volume (VAV) system, Displacement Ventilation (DV) system, and Demand Control Ventilation (DCV) system. Based on the simulation result, a strategy is proposed to minimize electricity consumption while maintaining sufficient thermal comfort and indoor air quality to the occupant.

The analysis is conducted using Building Information Modelling (BIM), Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software, and energy simulation software to simulate the airflow, temperature, CO2 concentration and energy consumption in different scenarios. Thermal comfort and IAQ are evaluated by comparing the simulated result to the international standards and local guidelines such as ASHRAE and HKIAQ. Autodesk CFD, Revit, eQUEST and EnergyPlus are used for the simulations in this project.

The simulation result shows that ventilation at the back of the lecture theatre is poor even though the air handling units run in full capacity. This project has found that changing the location of the inlet of supply air duct can significantly improve the ventilation at the back without increasing the electricity consumption. CFD simulation shows that even in 100% occupancy, the lecture theatre after modification fulfils the requirement of an excellent class according to HKIAQ’s objective.
N.A.
HKUST Modeling of the indoor/outdoor exchange of air pollutants for the selected building with the aid of building information modeling technology FYP 06/2018 CHAN, Chun Tat
LUI, Kin Leung
TANG, Chloe
As with many other metropolitan cities, air pollution is an acute problem in Hong Kong; by affecting the health of its citizens, it affects the health care system and thus imposes economic burden. In 2015, air pollution led to 2,100 premature deaths and a resultant economic loss of HKD 27 billion. While people’s exposure to air pollutants differs in location and their respective activities, the critical occasions when they are exposed to the greatest amount of air pollutants remain ambiguous. Authorities have been attempting to tackle this problem by scrutinising big data to provide real-time estimations of individuals’ exposure to key air pollutants. A crucial element that enables such technology is the capability of obtaining the pollutant concentrations of different indoor-microenvironments based on the outdoor air quality. This paper reports an ongoing study on the simulation of the indoor/outdoor exchange of air pollutants with the aid of Building Information Modelling technology (BIM), followed by computational fluid dynamics simulations. The Exchange Tower in Kowloon Bay was selected as representative of a typical Hong Kong office building; its daily operation and building systems were analysed and evaluated. The results revealed that indoor environments can be described by their temperature and flow fields, which are highly related. The interdependency of these two variables means that the flow field can be derived once sufficient information on the temperature field can be gathered. This is crucial as the dispersion of air pollutants greatly depends on the characteristic of the flow field. In terms of buildings’ operation and management, a properly designed, well-mixed air distribution system was found to be effective in reducing local concentration of inert air pollutants. It was also energy efficient whilst providing comfort to the building occupants. This implies that regulations on improving building systems and monitoring the resulting indoor air quality could reduce people’s exposure to air pollutants and thereby alleviate the associated impacts and their corollaries. N.A.
HKUST Analysis and Evaluation of Low Carbon Building Features Using Building Information Modeling FYP 06/2018 CHAN, Yin Yee
TSANG, Chun Kit
Building sector contributes to more than 30% of the global greenhouse gas emissions, which is the major source of greenhouse gas emissions. In Hong Kong, a high-rise and high-density city, about 60% of carbon emissions and 90% of energy expenditure come from buildings. Mitigating the environmental impacts caused by the building sector can be achieved by low carbon buildings. However, previous studies on carbon emissions from buildings mainly adopted manual processes and only a few studies applied computational fluid dynamics (CFD) into the analysis and calculated the carbon emissions using the CFD results. Therefore, the comparison between buildings with different features is laborious. Building information modelling (BIM) enables comprehensive and accurate analysis of low carbon building features by collaborating with various simulation systems. By incorporating CFD into the analysis and evaluation of the carbon footprint of different Hong Kong public housing standard blocks using BIM, the research of low carbon building is extended. Revit models of three common Hong Kong public housing blocks are created, and the embodied carbon is quantified by using the material schedules and the corresponding carbon emission factors of different construction materials. The operational carbon is quantified by using the energy simulation results and the CFD results. By considering the total carbon emissions throughout the life-cycle of the buildings, it is found that the harmony block has the lowest carbon emissions among studied public housing standard blocks. When considered the effect of natural ventilation, the energy consumption of the buildings can be reduced up to 17%. N.A.
HKUST Construction Planning of Prefabricated Units Leveraging BIM and Resource Leveling Techniques FYP 06/2018 WONG, Kok Yiu
YEUNG, Ching Hei
As a compact city with limited amount of available land and vast population, Hong Kong is currently facing the massive demand for housing. This phenomenon has been driving the construction industry to enhance the productivity of construction projects, particularly for residential buildings. In recent years, the Hong Kong government has been investigating the feasibility of Modular Integrated Construction (MIC). MIC refers to a construction method where volumetric modules are prefabricated in factories and then assembled at a construction site to form a building. The productivity of this method has been demonstrated by numerous projects in foreign countries, such as Singapore and China. In view of the proven benefits of MIC, the Hong Kong government has proposed three pilot projects recently, which will adopt MIC to construct resident buildings. However, the local industry possesses insufficient experience in managing this kind of construction projects. This report presents an optimization framework, which integrates Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Building Information Modeling (BIM) to perform resource leveling based on constraints of a MIC project. An illustrative case demonstrates the functionalities of GA and BIM in optimizing the schedule of a MIC project. The proposed framework aims to provide the industry practitioners with a general guideline for scheduling a MIC project. N.A.
HKUST Developing an BIM and Augmented Reality-based Framework for Construction Monitoring and Facility Management FYP 06/2018 CHIU, San Fung
KWOK, Wai Shing
Augmented reality (AR) is an innovative technology, which allows the real-world environment to be augmented by virtual information. In construction industry, the mobile accessibility of building information through building information modelling (BIM) is still limited, a practical AR system with the integration of building information modelling (BIM) to realize real-time collaboration is yet to be developed. In addressing this gap, this project developed an integrated Augmented Reality (AR) and Building Information Modeling (BIM) framework to achieve the real-time collaboration in construction monitoring and facility management. The function of the developed framework is shown in two scenarios about pipe repairing tutorial and real-time collaboration on remoting computer and mobile device. N.A.