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Dr. Bernardino D'Amico
Edinburgh Napier University

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Journal article
Published: 05 July 2021 in npj Urban Sustainability
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The UN estimate 2.5 billion new urban residents by 2050, thus further increasing global greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions and energy demand, and the environmental impacts caused by the built environment. Achieving optimal use of space and maximal efficiency in buildings is therefore fundamental for sustainable urbanisation. There is a growing belief that building taller and denser is better. However, urban environmental design often neglects life cycle GHG emissions. Here we offer a method that decouples density and tallness in urban environments and allows each to be analysed individually. We test this method on case studies of real neighbourhoods and show that taller urban environments significantly increase life cycle GHG emissions (+154%) and low-density urban environments significantly increase land use (+142%). However, increasing urban density without increasing urban height reduces life cycle GHG emissions while maximising the population capacity. These results contend the claim that building taller is the most efficient way to meet growing demand for urban space and instead show that denser urban environments do not significantly increase life cycle GHG emissions and require less land.

ACS Style

Francesco Pomponi; Ruth Saint; Jay H. Arehart; Niaz Gharavi; Bernardino D’Amico. Decoupling density from tallness in analysing the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of cities. npj Urban Sustainability 2021, 1, 1 .

AMA Style

Francesco Pomponi, Ruth Saint, Jay H. Arehart, Niaz Gharavi, Bernardino D’Amico. Decoupling density from tallness in analysing the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of cities. npj Urban Sustainability. 2021; 1 (1):1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Francesco Pomponi; Ruth Saint; Jay H. Arehart; Niaz Gharavi; Bernardino D’Amico. 2021. "Decoupling density from tallness in analysing the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of cities." npj Urban Sustainability 1, no. 1: 1.

Research and analysis
Published: 22 April 2021 in Journal of Industrial Ecology
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Buildings and the construction industry are top contributors to climate change, and structures account for the largest share of the upfront greenhouse gas emissions. While a body of research exists into such emissions, a systematic comparison of multiple building structures in steel, concrete, and timber alternatives is missing. In this article, comparisons are made between mass and whole‐life embodied carbon (WLEC) emissions of building superstructures using identical frame configurations in steel, reinforced concrete, and engineered timber frames. These are assessed and compared for 127 different frame configurations, from 2 to 19 stories. Embodied carbon coefficients for each material and life cycle stage are represented by probability density functions to capture the uncertainty inherent in life cycle assessment. Normalized results show clear differences between the masses of the three structural typologies, with the concrete frame approximately five times the mass of the timber frame, and 50% higher than the steel frame. The WLEC emissions are mainly governed by the upfront emissions (cradle to practical completion), but subsequent emissions are still significant—particularly in the case of timber for which 36% of emissions, on average, occur post‐construction. Results for WLEC are more closely grouped than for masses, with median values for the timber frame, concrete frame, and steel frame of 119, 185, and 228 kgCO2e/m2, respectively. Despite the advantage for timber in this comparison, there is overlap between the results distributions, meaning that close attention to efficient design and procurement is essential. This article met the requirements for a gold–gold JIE data openness badge described in http://jie.click/badges.

ACS Style

Jim Hart; Bernardino D'Amico; Francesco Pomponi. Whole‐life embodied carbon in multistory buildings: Steel, concrete and timber structures. Journal of Industrial Ecology 2021, 25, 403 -418.

AMA Style

Jim Hart, Bernardino D'Amico, Francesco Pomponi. Whole‐life embodied carbon in multistory buildings: Steel, concrete and timber structures. Journal of Industrial Ecology. 2021; 25 (2):403-418.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Jim Hart; Bernardino D'Amico; Francesco Pomponi. 2021. "Whole‐life embodied carbon in multistory buildings: Steel, concrete and timber structures." Journal of Industrial Ecology 25, no. 2: 403-418.

Editorial
Published: 05 November 2020 in Sustainability
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Projected population growth and urbanization rates will create a huge demand for new buildings and put an unprecedented pressure on the natural environment and its limited resources. Architectural design has often focused on passive or low-energy approaches to reduce the energy consumption of buildings but it is evident that a more holistic, whole-life based mindset is imperative. On another scale, the movement for, and global initiatives around, low carbon cities promise to deliver the built environment of tomorrow, in harmony with the natural boundary of our planet, the societal needs of its human habitants, and the required growth for economic prosperity. However, cities are made up of individual buildings and this intimate relationship is often poorly understood and under-researched. This multi-scale problem (materials, buildings, and cities) requires plural, trans-disciplinary, and creative ways to develop a range of viable solutions. The unknown about our built environment is vast: the articles in this special issue aim to contribute to the ongoing global efforts to ensure our built environments will be fit for the challenges of our time.

ACS Style

Francesco Pomponi; Bernardino D’Amico. Low Energy Architecture and Low Carbon Cities: Exploring Links, Scales, and Environmental Impacts. Sustainability 2020, 12, 9189 .

AMA Style

Francesco Pomponi, Bernardino D’Amico. Low Energy Architecture and Low Carbon Cities: Exploring Links, Scales, and Environmental Impacts. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (21):9189.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Francesco Pomponi; Bernardino D’Amico. 2020. "Low Energy Architecture and Low Carbon Cities: Exploring Links, Scales, and Environmental Impacts." Sustainability 12, no. 21: 9189.

Journal article
Published: 14 August 2020 in Journal of Cleaner Production
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The building and construction sector is a large contributor to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and consumes the vastest amount of natural resources. Widely considered a hard-to-decarbonise sector, improvements in buildings and construction are of fundamental importance for national and global targets to combat climate change. At material level, mitigation opportunities exist in terms of efficiency (using less of the same material) and substitution (using a different material). This article investigates the latter, with a global focus on the use of cross laminated timber to replace concrete floors in steel structural systems. This approach, whilst innovative, does not require any technological development nor upskilling of current professional practice, thus making it an immediately viable solution to accelerate decarbonisation. We combine Material Flow Analysis with Life Cycle Assessment across both spatial and temporal dimensions, accounting for different levels of uptake of the proposed hybrid construction in the next 30 years. Results show that greenhouse gas emissions saving potentials range between 20-80 Mt CO2e (95% confidence interval) with an average around 50 Mt CO2e in the case of full uptake of the hybrid construction system by 2050. Our analysis does not account for carbon sequestration potential in timber, which would make the savings much greater. Still, the overall savings represent a 1.5% reduction of the annual greenhouse gas emissions generally attributed to construction, thus making it a non-trivial contribution to progress towards global targets of net-zero carbon buildings.

ACS Style

Bernardino D’Amico; Francesco Pomponi; Jim Hart. Global potential for material substitution in building construction: The case of cross laminated timber. Journal of Cleaner Production 2020, 279, 123487 .

AMA Style

Bernardino D’Amico, Francesco Pomponi, Jim Hart. Global potential for material substitution in building construction: The case of cross laminated timber. Journal of Cleaner Production. 2020; 279 ():123487.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Bernardino D’Amico; Francesco Pomponi; Jim Hart. 2020. "Global potential for material substitution in building construction: The case of cross laminated timber." Journal of Cleaner Production 279, no. : 123487.

Journal article
Published: 05 August 2020 in Emerald Open Research
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The construction and operation of buildings is a major contributor to global energy demand, greenhouse gases emissions, resource depletion, waste generation, and associated environmental effects, such as climate change, pollution and habitat destruction. Despite its wide relevance, research on building-related environmental effects often fails to achieve global visibility and attention, particularly in premiere interdisciplinary journals – thus representing a major gap in the research these journals offer. In this article we review and reflect on the factors that are likely causing this lack of visibility for such a prominent research topic and emphasise the need to reconcile the construction and operational phases into the physical unity of a building, to contribute to the global environmental discourse using a lifecycle-based approach. This article also aims to act as a call for action and to raise awareness of this important gap. The evidence contained in the article can support institutional policies to improve the status quo and provide a practical help to researchers in the field to bring their work to wide interdisciplinary audiences.

ACS Style

Francesco Pomponi; Robert Crawford; André Stephan; Jim Hart; Bernardino D'amico. The ‘building paradox’: research on building-related environmental effects requires global visibility and attention. Emerald Open Research 2020, 2, 50 .

AMA Style

Francesco Pomponi, Robert Crawford, André Stephan, Jim Hart, Bernardino D'amico. The ‘building paradox’: research on building-related environmental effects requires global visibility and attention. Emerald Open Research. 2020; 2 ():50.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Francesco Pomponi; Robert Crawford; André Stephan; Jim Hart; Bernardino D'amico. 2020. "The ‘building paradox’: research on building-related environmental effects requires global visibility and attention." Emerald Open Research 2, no. : 50.

Journal article
Published: 28 April 2020 in Journal of Building Engineering
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This paper introduces a numerical study aimed at analysing and quantifying existing correlations between structural masses of the gravity frame in building structures (i.e. excluding lateral load resisting system) and some key basic design variables, such as bay areas of the frame layout, magnitude of floor loads and (main) structural material. Three material options are considered, namely: reinforced concrete, steel and engineered timber. A total of 31,380 different structural frame designs are parametrically generated and analysed to obtain a population of design data points that express the amounts of structural mass per unit of floor area. Least squares and quantile regression analyses have been utilised on the numerically generated sample population to evaluate any existing statistical trend between design variables and mass quantities. The set of regression coefficients so obtained is eventually organised into a tabular format, which allows for immediate estimations of the structural mass quantities (along with their uncertainty ranges) at an early stage of the structural design process. Such a table of coefficients represents the main finding of this work, as it can be straightforwardly combined with existing databases of embodied GHG and energy coefficients, therefore providing an effective estimation tool, for both practitioners and researchers, to quickly assess how both layout and load configurations affect the environmental impacts of their frame design.

ACS Style

Bernardino D'Amico; Francesco Pomponi. On mass quantities of gravity frames in building structures. Journal of Building Engineering 2020, 31, 101426 .

AMA Style

Bernardino D'Amico, Francesco Pomponi. On mass quantities of gravity frames in building structures. Journal of Building Engineering. 2020; 31 ():101426.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Bernardino D'Amico; Francesco Pomponi. 2020. "On mass quantities of gravity frames in building structures." Journal of Building Engineering 31, no. : 101426.

Journal article
Published: 24 January 2020 in Sustainability
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During the course of 2018, 70.8 million people globally were forcibly displaced due to natural disasters and conflicts—a staggering increase of 2.9 million people compared to the previous year’s figure. Displaced people cluster in refugee camps which have very often the scale of a medium-sized city. Post-disaster and post-conflict (PDPC) sheltering therefore represents a vitally important element for both the short- and long-term wellbeing of the displaced. However, the constrained environment which dominates PDPC sheltering often results in a lack of consideration of sustainability dimensions. Neglecting sustainability has severe practical consequences on both people and the environment, and in the long run it also incurs higher costs. It is therefore imperative to quickly transfer to PDPC sheltering where sustainability considerations are a key element of the design and decision-making processes. To facilitate such transition, this article reviews both ‘existing solutions’ and ‘novel designs’ for PDPC sheltering against the three pillars of sustainability. Both clusters are systematically categorized, and pros and cons of solutions and designs are identified. This provides an overview of the attempts made so far in different contexts, and it highlights what worked and what did not. This article represents a stepping-stone for future work in this area, to both facilitate and accelerate the transition to sustainable sheltering.

ACS Style

Lara Alshawawreh; Francesco Pomponi; Bernardino D’Amico; Susan Snaddon; Peter Guthrie. Qualifying the Sustainability of Novel Designs and Existing Solutions for Post-Disaster and Post-Conflict Sheltering. Sustainability 2020, 12, 890 .

AMA Style

Lara Alshawawreh, Francesco Pomponi, Bernardino D’Amico, Susan Snaddon, Peter Guthrie. Qualifying the Sustainability of Novel Designs and Existing Solutions for Post-Disaster and Post-Conflict Sheltering. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (3):890.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Lara Alshawawreh; Francesco Pomponi; Bernardino D’Amico; Susan Snaddon; Peter Guthrie. 2020. "Qualifying the Sustainability of Novel Designs and Existing Solutions for Post-Disaster and Post-Conflict Sheltering." Sustainability 12, no. 3: 890.

Journal article
Published: 12 June 2019 in Royal Society Open Science
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Global population growth and urbanization necessitate countless more buildings in this century, causing an unprecedented increase in energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, waste generation and resource use. It is imperative to achieve maximal efficiency in buildings quickly. The building envelope is a key element to address environmental concerns, as it is responsible for thermal transfers to the outdoors, causing energy demand and carbon emissions. It also requires cladding, thus consuming a significant amount of finite resources. This paper investigates the relationship between surface area and indoor space to unravel the sustainability of building forms. Firstly, we demonstrate what the optimal form is. Secondly, as a single definite form is of little use in practice, we develop a scale-independent metric to measure the degree of optimality of building forms and show its practical use. This newly developed metric can significantly help in early design stages, by quantifying how much a building form deviates from optimality and identifying the domain of alternative geometries to bring us closer to it. This compactness measure also represents a theoretical basis for further research, to explore how optimality changes when additional parameters are factored in. It therefore contributes to both theory and practice to support global efforts towards sustainable built environments.

ACS Style

Bernardino D’Amico; Francesco Pomponi. A compactness measure of sustainable building forms. Royal Society Open Science 2019, 6, 181265 .

AMA Style

Bernardino D’Amico, Francesco Pomponi. A compactness measure of sustainable building forms. Royal Society Open Science. 2019; 6 (6):181265.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Bernardino D’Amico; Francesco Pomponi. 2019. "A compactness measure of sustainable building forms." Royal Society Open Science 6, no. 6: 181265.

Journal article
Published: 20 May 2019 in Economía Creativa
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While the Circular Economy (CE) is gaining traction as a new economic paradigm to overcome the linear economy, it has not yet developed an understanding on how to transition from the present into the future. What if the future is different from what the CE expects? We argue that the CE cannot answer this question adequately and therefore is not capable of developing this understanding alone. To address this shortcoming, we propose Futures Studies (FS) as a complementary discipline because it offers exactly what CE lacks: methods to explore alternative futures. Whilst both communities are working towards the same goal —a sustainable tomorrow— until now they show little to no interaction. This research represents a first step towards embedding realistic considerations of futures into the CE debate: it reviews literature in both fields and their theoretical background to highlight potential synergies, and lay a path on where and how to start.

ACS Style

Ricardo Weigend Rodríguez; Francesco Pomponi; Bernardino D’Amico. Futures Studies & the CircularEconomy: an Interdisciplinary Approach to Sustainable Development. Economía Creativa 2019, 38 -60.

AMA Style

Ricardo Weigend Rodríguez, Francesco Pomponi, Bernardino D’Amico. Futures Studies & the CircularEconomy: an Interdisciplinary Approach to Sustainable Development. Economía Creativa. 2019; (11):38-60.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Ricardo Weigend Rodríguez; Francesco Pomponi; Bernardino D’Amico. 2019. "Futures Studies & the CircularEconomy: an Interdisciplinary Approach to Sustainable Development." Economía Creativa , no. 11: 38-60.

Editorial
Published: 04 March 2019 in Publications
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Scientific publishing is experiencing unprecedented growth in terms of outputs across all fields. Inevitably this creates pressure throughout the system on a number of entities. One key element is represented by peer-reviewers, whose demand increases at an even higher pace than that of publications, since more than one reviewer per paper is needed and not all papers that get reviewed get published. The relatively recent Publons platform allows for unprecedented insight into the usual ‘blindness’ of the peer-review system. At a time where the world’s top peer-reviewers are announced and celebrated, we have taken a step back in order to attempt a partial mapping of their profiles to identify trends and key dimensions of this community of ‘super-reviewers’. This commentary focuses necessarily on a limited sample due to manual processing of data, which needs to be done within a single day for the type of information we seek. In investigating the numbers of performed reviews vs. academic citations, our analysis suggests that most reviews are carried out by relatively inexperienced academics. For some of these early career academics, peer-reviewing seems to be the only activity they engage with, given the high number of reviews performed (e.g., three manuscripts per day) and the lack of outputs (zero academic papers and citations in some cases). Additionally, the world’s top researchers (i.e., highly-cited researchers) are understandably busy with research activities and therefore far less active in peer-reviewing. Lastly, there seems to be an uneven distribution at a national level between scientific outputs (e.g., publications) and reviews performed. Our analysis contributes to the ongoing global discourse on the health of scientific peer-review, and it raises some important questions for further discussion.

ACS Style

Francesco Pomponi; Bernardino D’Amico; Tom Rye. Who Is (Likely) Peer-Reviewing Your Papers? A Partial Insight into the World’s Top Reviewers. Publications 2019, 7, 15 .

AMA Style

Francesco Pomponi, Bernardino D’Amico, Tom Rye. Who Is (Likely) Peer-Reviewing Your Papers? A Partial Insight into the World’s Top Reviewers. Publications. 2019; 7 (1):15.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Francesco Pomponi; Bernardino D’Amico; Tom Rye. 2019. "Who Is (Likely) Peer-Reviewing Your Papers? A Partial Insight into the World’s Top Reviewers." Publications 7, no. 1: 15.

Journal article
Published: 01 June 2018 in Energy and Buildings
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Building structures often represent the element with the largest mass in a building project, with significant effects on the buildings life cycle environmental impacts. Amongst structural materials, steel is characterised by its suitability to a large number of structures as well as a highly pollutant supply chain. Therefore, even a small reduction of the amount of steel currently used in building structures, would undoubtedly be beneficial towards the mitigation of environmental impacts. This paper presents a computational tool that aims to help practitioners to design material-efficient structures for multi-storey buildings frames. The tool is based on an optimisation framework, which –given a small set of input parameters defining the overall frame geometry and the system of loadings– seeks for optimised cross-sections for each structural member, based on a finite set of commercially available section profiles. Results are fully compliant with British and European standards for structural design. The user can therefore quickly and reliably assess a wide range of alternative frame layouts in a nearly real-time frame. To avoid misleading the decision-maker with very definite numbers, both structural mass and embodied carbon coefficients are considered along with their uncertainty through Montecarlo simulation. The final output consists of a probability density function of the embodied carbon for the specific structural design under consideration. The mathematical model which underpins the tool has been extensively validated. Results of an application to a practical example show a carbon emissions reduction potential of 23%. To maximise the impact of the research findings, the described work has been implemented into a plug-in tool for a widely used CAD software. This will help practitioners to take into account embodied carbon consideration early on in the design process when the room for improvement is greatest and the economic repercussions of design changes are low. This tool represents a fundamental first step to translate research on embodied carbon reduction into a means that is useful to, and usable by, industry professionals to mitigate building-related carbon emissions and progress towards national and international carbon targets.

ACS Style

Bernardino D’Amico; Francesco Pomponi. Accuracy and reliability: A computational tool to minimise steel mass and carbon emissions at early-stage structural design. Energy and Buildings 2018, 168, 236 -250.

AMA Style

Bernardino D’Amico, Francesco Pomponi. Accuracy and reliability: A computational tool to minimise steel mass and carbon emissions at early-stage structural design. Energy and Buildings. 2018; 168 ():236-250.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Bernardino D’Amico; Francesco Pomponi. 2018. "Accuracy and reliability: A computational tool to minimise steel mass and carbon emissions at early-stage structural design." Energy and Buildings 168, no. : 236-250.

Journal article
Published: 01 January 2018 in Procedia CIRP
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The steel industry is arguably one of the most pollutant manufacturing sectors. The vast majority of steel produced worldwide is employed by the construction industry, mostly under the form of profile members for structural use, and it is primarily utilized in framed building structures. Even a small reduction of the steel amount currently used for building structures would therefore be beneficial, in terms of environmental impacts. This paper presents the findings from funded research, aiming to provide design practitioners with an effective optimisation tool to facilitate more material-efficient structural frames to be designed, hence allowing the design community to play an active role in the ongoing ‘battle’ to mitigate the environmental impacts linked to the construction sector. Given a small set of required input parameters, the developed tool consents to generate a wide range of (geometrically and topologically) different steel frame designs, based on optimised cross-sectional steel profiles. Overall measures of the steel mass quantities, associated with the optimised steel frame design, are then computed and outputted. In this way, the user can quantify, in an early phase of the design process, how much a chosen frame layout will affect the structural mass of the building, therefore having a design tool to explore alternative structural layout solutions, based on the range of building's shapes limitedly to the particular project at hand.

ACS Style

Bernardino D’Amico; Francesco Pomponi. Sustainability Tool to Optimise Material Quantities of Steel in the Construction Industry. Procedia CIRP 2018, 69, 184 -188.

AMA Style

Bernardino D’Amico, Francesco Pomponi. Sustainability Tool to Optimise Material Quantities of Steel in the Construction Industry. Procedia CIRP. 2018; 69 ():184-188.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Bernardino D’Amico; Francesco Pomponi. 2018. "Sustainability Tool to Optimise Material Quantities of Steel in the Construction Industry." Procedia CIRP 69, no. : 184-188.

Journal article
Published: 01 January 2018 in Procedia CIRP
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The circular economy has set out a new paradigm for a much needed shift from eco-efficiency to eco-effectiveness. Buildings are top contributor globally for resource use and waste creation. Therefore, any improvement in an effective use of building materials would have significant effects when scaled up. However, some interventions are better than others; in the sense that they can maximize the reduction of negative environmental externalities with minimal impact on the economy. This paper investigates the most effective strategies for the reduction of environmental impacts from building material and components within the context of the UK. It uses the most recent input-output table to establish the link between the reduction of environmental externalities and the impact on the various economic sectors. In doing so, an informed trade-off is achieved and intervention strategies that would yield the most beneficial effect for the environment with minimal impact on economic growth are identified.

ACS Style

Francesco Pomponi; Bernardino D’Amico. Carbon Mitigation in the Built Environment: An Input-output Analysis of Building Materials and Components in the UK. Procedia CIRP 2018, 69, 189 -193.

AMA Style

Francesco Pomponi, Bernardino D’Amico. Carbon Mitigation in the Built Environment: An Input-output Analysis of Building Materials and Components in the UK. Procedia CIRP. 2018; 69 ():189-193.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Francesco Pomponi; Bernardino D’Amico. 2018. "Carbon Mitigation in the Built Environment: An Input-output Analysis of Building Materials and Components in the UK." Procedia CIRP 69, no. : 189-193.

Journal article
Published: 01 November 2017 in Building and Environment
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ACS Style

Francesco Pomponi; Bernardino D'Amico. Holistic study of a timber double skin façade: Whole life carbon emissions and structural optimisation. Building and Environment 2017, 124, 42 -56.

AMA Style

Francesco Pomponi, Bernardino D'Amico. Holistic study of a timber double skin façade: Whole life carbon emissions and structural optimisation. Building and Environment. 2017; 124 ():42-56.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Francesco Pomponi; Bernardino D'Amico. 2017. "Holistic study of a timber double skin façade: Whole life carbon emissions and structural optimisation." Building and Environment 124, no. : 42-56.

Journal article
Published: 01 November 2017 in Structures
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ACS Style

R. Dhonju; B. D’Amico; A. Kermani; J. Porteous; B. Zhang. Parametric Evaluation of Racking Performance of Platform Timber Framed Walls. Structures 2017, 12, 75 -87.

AMA Style

R. Dhonju, B. D’Amico, A. Kermani, J. Porteous, B. Zhang. Parametric Evaluation of Racking Performance of Platform Timber Framed Walls. Structures. 2017; 12 ():75-87.

Chicago/Turabian Style

R. Dhonju; B. D’Amico; A. Kermani; J. Porteous; B. Zhang. 2017. "Parametric Evaluation of Racking Performance of Platform Timber Framed Walls." Structures 12, no. : 75-87.

Journal article
Published: 13 April 2017 in Energies
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Life cycle assessment (LCA) is increasingly becoming a common technique to assess the embodied energy and carbon of buildings and their components over their life cycle. However, the vast majority of existing LCAs result in very definite, deterministic values which carry a false sense of certainty and can mislead decisions and judgments. This article tackles the lack of uncertainty analysis in LCAs of buildings by addressing the main causes for not undertaking this important activity. The research uses primary data for embodied energy collected from European manufacturers as a starting point. Such robust datasets are used as inputs for the stochastic modelling of uncertainty through Monte Carlo algorithms. Several groups of random samplings between 101 and 107 are tested under two scenarios: data are normally distributed (empirically verified) and data are uniformly distributed. Results show that the hypothesis on the data no longer influences the results after a high enough number of random samplings (104). This finding holds true both in terms of mean values and standard deviations and is also independent of the size of the life cycle inventory (LCI): it occurs in both large and small datasets. Findings from this research facilitate uncertainty analysis in LCA. By reducing significantly the amount of data necessary to infer information about uncertainty, a more widespread inclusion of uncertainty analysis in LCA can be encouraged in assessments from practitioners and academics alike.

ACS Style

Francesco Pomponi; Bernardino D’Amico; Alice M. Moncaster. A Method to Facilitate Uncertainty Analysis in LCAs of Buildings. Energies 2017, 10, 524 .

AMA Style

Francesco Pomponi, Bernardino D’Amico, Alice M. Moncaster. A Method to Facilitate Uncertainty Analysis in LCAs of Buildings. Energies. 2017; 10 (4):524.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Francesco Pomponi; Bernardino D’Amico; Alice M. Moncaster. 2017. "A Method to Facilitate Uncertainty Analysis in LCAs of Buildings." Energies 10, no. 4: 524.

Journal article
Published: 01 December 2016 in Construction and Building Materials
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ACS Style

B. D’Amico; A. Kermani; J. Porteous; R. Dhonju; B. Zhang. Racking performance of Platform timber framed walls assessed by rigid body relaxation technique. Construction and Building Materials 2016, 129, 148 -158.

AMA Style

B. D’Amico, A. Kermani, J. Porteous, R. Dhonju, B. Zhang. Racking performance of Platform timber framed walls assessed by rigid body relaxation technique. Construction and Building Materials. 2016; 129 ():148-158.

Chicago/Turabian Style

B. D’Amico; A. Kermani; J. Porteous; R. Dhonju; B. Zhang. 2016. "Racking performance of Platform timber framed walls assessed by rigid body relaxation technique." Construction and Building Materials 129, no. : 148-158.

Book chapter
Published: 11 July 2016 in Structures and Architecture
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ACS Style

A Liuti; Alberto Pugnale; B D'amico; Paulo Da Sousa. Building timber gridshells with air: Numerical simulations and technique challenges. Structures and Architecture 2016, 251 -258.

AMA Style

A Liuti, Alberto Pugnale, B D'amico, Paulo Da Sousa. Building timber gridshells with air: Numerical simulations and technique challenges. Structures and Architecture. 2016; ():251-258.

Chicago/Turabian Style

A Liuti; Alberto Pugnale; B D'amico; Paulo Da Sousa. 2016. "Building timber gridshells with air: Numerical simulations and technique challenges." Structures and Architecture , no. : 251-258.

Journal article
Published: 01 June 2016 in Engineering Structures
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A discrete formulation of elastic rod has been tailored for the particular design task of geometric modelling, form finding and analysis of actively bent structural systems. The rod element is fully described by using vector based quantities, hence making it easy to implement and be suitable for explicit resolution methods such as the Dynamic Relaxation (DR). From this point of view, the model under consideration aims to provide a natural enhancement, of existing DR schemes of elastic rods, primarily formulated for analysis/design of stressed spline structures with isotropic cross-section, whilst, the proposed formulation allows for the general case of initially straight rods with anisotropic cross-section and torsional stiffness effects, to be taken into consideration. In order to avoid numerical conditioning problems, the method adopts a reduced Degrees of Freedom approach, however, the design limitations usually involved with such an approach, are ‘removed’ by adopting the Bishop theory of framed curves, hence making it possible to reduce to only three (translations) the Degrees of Freedom to be explicitly computed by numerical integration of the corresponding acceleration terms.

ACS Style

B. D’Amico; H. Zhang; A. Kermani. A finite-difference formulation of elastic rod for the design of actively bent structures. Engineering Structures 2016, 117, 518 -527.

AMA Style

B. D’Amico, H. Zhang, A. Kermani. A finite-difference formulation of elastic rod for the design of actively bent structures. Engineering Structures. 2016; 117 ():518-527.

Chicago/Turabian Style

B. D’Amico; H. Zhang; A. Kermani. 2016. "A finite-difference formulation of elastic rod for the design of actively bent structures." Engineering Structures 117, no. : 518-527.

Journal article
Published: 01 August 2015 in Structures
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Timber gridshell structures, such as the Multihalle for the federal garden festival in Mannheim or the Downland Museum, have been the result of a creative-generative process that indissolubly 'welded' the structural contribution to that of form exploration. The challenging design and construction issues have been typically addressed and resolved in several inventive ways. However, still now, form-finding and erection of timber gridshells present many difficulties. In this regard, this paper aims to provide a series of novel steps to address some of the main design and construction issues that are associated with 'actively-bent' timber gridshell structures. First, the main characteristics of the construction process of timber gridshells are described and the basic theoretical concepts for its numerical simulation, through Dynamic Relaxation method, are introduced. Second, a practical method for sizing the laths' cross-section is presented. Third, a new erection technique for timber gridshells is proposed and applied to the construction of a full scale (prototype) structure, the Toledo gridshell 2.0. Fourth, a new bracing system for the same structure, which was built at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Naples Federico II in June-July 2014, is explained and discussed. The paper also highlights the need for further application to validate the techniques explained here, with particular attention being paid for the construction of large scale free-form structures

ACS Style

Bernardino D'Amico; A. Kermani; Hexin(Johnson) Zhang; Alberto Pugnale; S. Colabella; S. Pone. Timber gridshells: Numerical simulation, design and construction of a full scale structure. Structures 2015, 3, 227 -235.

AMA Style

Bernardino D'Amico, A. Kermani, Hexin(Johnson) Zhang, Alberto Pugnale, S. Colabella, S. Pone. Timber gridshells: Numerical simulation, design and construction of a full scale structure. Structures. 2015; 3 ():227-235.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Bernardino D'Amico; A. Kermani; Hexin(Johnson) Zhang; Alberto Pugnale; S. Colabella; S. Pone. 2015. "Timber gridshells: Numerical simulation, design and construction of a full scale structure." Structures 3, no. : 227-235.