CE 31100 – Architectural Engineering

Credits and contact hours:

  • 3 credits
  • Lecture that meets 2 times per week for 75 minutes per meeting for 15 weeks

Specific course information:

  • Catalog description: Engineering fundamentals required for the design and analysis of buildings and their systems, such as thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat and mass transfer, light and sound transmission
  • Prerequisites: CE29900-1 Thermal/Energy Science for CE, Minimum Grade of C- [may be taken concurrently] or ME 20000 Thermodynamics
  • Course status: Technical selective course

Specific Goals for the course:

  • Student learning outcomes - Upon successful completion of this course the student shall be able to:
    • Apply the fundamentals of thermodynamics, heat and mass transfer, fluid mechanics, photometric quantities, and sound transmission to the analysis of the building components.
    • Identify, formulate, and solve system level problems related to building enclosure, air conditioning processes, building plumbing systems, and ventilation.
    • Demonstrate an understanding of the building integration to achieve energy efficiency and healthy built environment, as well as the effective communication and presentation skills.
  •  Relationship of course to program outcomes
    • Outcome 1: An ability to identify, formulate, and solve complex engineering problems by applying principles of engineering, science, and mathematics.

Topics:

  • Introduction (1.5 weeks)
    • Building environmental loads, building environmental systems, and green building design
  • Thermodynamics fundamentals for buildings (4 weeks)
    • Properties of ideal gas, gas-vapor mixtures, and air
    • Psychrometrics
    • Principles of the conservation of mass and energy to various air conditioning processes
  • Fluid mechanics fundamentals for buildings (0.5 week)
    • Fluid properties
    • Fluid flow through pipes or ducts and over flat plates
    • Fluid friction, Moody diagram, pressure drop and head loss calculation
  • Heat transfer fundamentals for buildings (4 weeks)
    • Thermal resistance and thermal boundary layer
    • Thermal conductivity and steady state heat conduction in plane walls
    • Forced convection over flat plates and inside pipes
    • Natural convection over surfaces, inside enclosures
    • Electromagnetic spectrum and thermal radiation, blackbody radiation, radiative properties of materials, view factors, radiation heat transfer
  • Mass transfer fundamentals for buildings (1 week)
    • Diffusion mass transport, mass diffusivity
  • Hygrothermal analysis of buildings (1 week)
    • Heat flow and thermal gradients in simple wall assemblies
    • Vapor permeance, one-dimensional steady state vapor flow in wall assemblies, interstitial condensation (occurrence and quantity), and moisture control
  • Building heating and cooling load (1.5 weeks)
    • Building envelope
    • Load calculation and simulation
  • Heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems (0.5 week)
    • HVAC system types and components
    • Calculation methods for simple variable-air-volume systems
  • Building illumination (0.5 week)
    • Physics of light and photometric quantities
    • Electric lighting calculation methods
  • Building acoustics (0.5 weeks)
    • Physics of sound and sound transmission class of wall assemblies
    • Noise criteria, room acoustics, and sound isolation and control
    • Calculation methods for sound absorption and transmission in buildings