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The purpose of this study is to investigate and analyse the potential of existing buildings in the UK to contribute to the net-zero emissions target. Specifically, it aims to address the significant emissions from building fabrics which pose a threat to achieving these targets if not properly addressed.

The study, based on a literature review and ten (10) case studies, explored five investigative approaches for evaluating building fabric: thermal imaging, in situ U-value testing, airtightness testing, energy assessment and condensation risk analysis. Cross-case analysis was used to evaluate both case studies using each approach. These methodologies were pivotal in assessing buildings’ existing condition and energy consumption and contributing to the UK’s net-zero ambitions.

Findings reveal that incorporating the earlier approaches into the building fabric showed great benefits. Significant temperature regulation issues were identified, energy consumption decreased by 15% after improvements, poor insulation and artistry quality affected the U-values of buildings. Implementing retrofits such as solar panels, air vents, insulation, heat recovery and air-sourced heat pumps significantly improved thermal performance while reducing energy consumption. Pulse technology proved effective in measuring airtightness, even in extremely airtight houses, and high airflow and moisture management were essential in preserving historic building fabric.

The research stresses the need to understand investigative approaches’ strengths, limitations and synergies for cost-effective energy performance strategies. It emphasizes the urgency of eliminating carbon dioxide (CO₂) and greenhouse gas emissions to combat global warming and meet the 1.5° C threshold.

Outsourcing of logistics has great importance in disaster relief. Aid agencies spend several billion US dollars every year on logistics services. However, the concept of outsourcing has not been established adequately in literature on humanitarian logistics, leading to a fragmented view of the practice. This paper provides a holistic perspective of the concept by constructing a conceptual framework to analyze both practice and research of outsourcing in humanitarian operations. Based on this analysis, we explore future trends and identify research gaps.

The paper is based on a structured review of academic literature, a two-round Delphi study with 31 experts from aid agencies and a complementary full-day focus group with twelve experts from aid agencies and logistics service providers.

The paper systemizes the current practice of outsourcing in humanitarian logistics according to a conceptual framework of five dimensions: subject, object, partner, design and context. In addition, it reveals ten probable developments of the practice over the next years. Finally, it describes eight important research gaps and presents a research agenda for the field.

The literature review considered peer-reviewed academic papers. Practitioner papers could provide additional insights into the practice. Moreover, the Delphi study focused on the perspective of aid agencies. Capturing the views of logistics service providers in more detail would be a valuable addition.

The paper establishes the academic basis for the important practice of outsourcing in humanitarian logistics. It highlights essential research gaps and, thereby, opens up the field for future research.

This study aims to computational numerical simulations to clarify and explore the influences of periodic cellular lattice (PCL) morphological parameters – such as lattice structure topology (simple cubic, body-centered cubic, z-reinforced body-centered cubic [BCCZ], face-centered cubic and z-reinforced face-centered cubic [FCCZ] lattice structures) and porosity value ( ) – on the thermal-hydraulic characteristics of the novel trussed fin-and-elliptical tube heat exchanger (FETHX), which has led to a deeper understanding of the superior heat transfer enhancement ability of the PCL structure.

A three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model is proposed in this paper to provide better understanding of the fluid flow and heat transfer behavior of the PCL structures in the trussed FETHXs associated with different structure topologies and high-porosities. The flow governing equations of the trussed FETHX are solved by the CFD software ANSYS CFX® and use the Menter SST turbulence model to accurately predict flow characteristics in the fluid flow region.

The thermal-hydraulic performance benchmarks analysis – such as field synergy performance and performance evaluation criteria – conducted during this research successfully identified demonstrates that if the high porosity of all PCL structures decrease to 92%, the best thermal-hydraulic performance is provided. Overall, according to the obtained outcomes, the trussed FETHX with the advantages of using BCCZ lattice structure at 92% porosity presents good thermal-hydraulic performance enhancement among all the investigated PCL structures.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first in the literature that provides thorough thermal-hydraulic characteristics of a novel trussed FETHX with high-porosity PCL structures.

Heating, ventilating, air-conditioning and cooling (HVAC) systems are crucial in daily health-care facility services. Design-related defects can lead to maintenance issues, causing service disruptions and cost overruns. These defects can be avoided if a link between the early design stages and maintenance feedback is established. This study aims to use experts’ experience in HVAC maintenance in health-care facilities to list and evaluate the risk of each maintenance issue caused by a design defect, supported by the literature.

Following semistructured interviews with experts, 41 maintenance issues were identified as the most encountered issues. Subsequently, a survey was conducted in which 44 participants evaluated the probability and impact of each design-caused issue.

Chillers were identified as the HVAC components most prone to design defects and cost impact. However, air distribution ducts and air handling units are the most critical HVAC components for maintaining healthy conditions inside health-care facilities.

The unavailability of comprehensive data on the cost impacts of all design-related defects from multiple health-care facilities limits the ability of HVAC designers to furnish case studies and quantitative approaches.

This study helps HVAC designers acquire prior knowledge of decisions that may have led to unnecessary and avoidable maintenance. These design-related maintenance issues may cause unfavorable health and cost consequences.

This paper aims to address socio-spatial challenges facing the sustainable regeneration of the 19th-century historic covered Attaba market. One of the few remaining historic market buildings in Cairo. Understanding these challenges is crucial as there is a pressing need for these buildings to be included in the national heritage regeneration policies that would foster their role as sustainable socio-economic urban nuclei within the city center.

The paper detects the socio-spatial transformation of the Attaba market through the comparison of archival material. This is supported by observations on the current socio-spatial aspects of the market including forms of interactions, conflicts and interventions of various user groups. A number of 30 semi-structured interviews with traders of the Attaba market were conducted inside the market, along with in-depth observations carried out between 2016 and 2018. Finally, information about local policies toward the market is obtained through interviews with local officials currently managing the market, namely, the Egyptian Endowment Authority and Cairo Governorate.

The findings reveal a lack of clear regeneration policy and a complete absence of public participation in decision-making. These factors erode the crucial role these markets play in revitalizing the city’s socio-economic strength and threaten their tangible and intangible values.

The paper focuses on one of the understudied building types that, however, represent key opportunities for the sustainable development of their contexts. The paper proposes a framework that can be applied to regenerate the Attaba market and its surroundings. When tested, the framework can be also adjusted and applied to the other historic covered markets in Cairo.

This paper is supposed to provide a critical review of current research progress on thermal management in grinding of superalloys, and future directions and challenges. By understanding the current progress and identifying the developing directions, thermal management can be achieved in the grinding of superalloys to significantly improve the grinding quality and efficiency.

The relevant literature is collected from Web of Science, Scopus, CNKI, Google scholar, etc. A total of 185 literature is analyzed, and the findings in the literature are systematically summarized. In this case, the current development and future trends of thermal management in grinding of superalloys can be concluded.

The recent developments in grinding superalloys, demands, challenges and solutions are analyzed. The theoretical basis of thermal management in grinding, the grinding heat partition analysis, is also summarized. The novel methods and technologies for thermal management are developed and reviewed, i.e. new grinding technologies and parameter optimization, super abrasive grinding wheel technologies, improved lubrication, highly efficient coolant delivery and enhanced heat transfer by passive thermal devices. Finally, the future trends and challenges are identified.

Superalloys have excellent physical and mechanical properties, e.g. high thermal stability, and good high-temperature strength. The superalloys have been broadly applied in the aerospace, energy and automobile industries. Grinding is one of the most important precision machining technologies for superalloy parts. Owing to the mechanical and physical properties of superalloys, during grinding processes, forces are large and a massive heat is generated. Consequently, the improvement of grinding quality and efficiency is limited. It is important to conduct thermal management in the grinding of superalloys to decrease grinding forces and heat generation. The grinding heat is also dissipated in time by enhanced heat transfer methods. Therefore, it is necessary and valuable to holistically review the current situation of thermal management in grinding of superalloys and also provide the development trends and challenges.

Incineration has become increasingly important in many large cities around the world because of fast urbanization and population growth. The benefits of energy production and large reduction in the waste volume to landfills also contribute to its growing adaptation for solid waste management for these cities. At the same time, the environmental impact of the pollutant gases emitted from the incineration process is a common concern for various stakeholders which must be properly addressed. To minimize the pollutant gas emission levels, as well as maximize the energy efficiency, it is critically important to optimize the combustion performance of an incinerator freeboard which would require the development of reliable approaches based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling. A critical task in the CFD modeling of an incinerator furnace requires the specification of waste characteristics along the moving grate as boundary conditions, which is not available in standard CFD packages at present. This study aims to address this gap by developing a numerical incinerator waste bed model.

A one-dimensional Lagrangian model for the incineration waste bed has been developed, which can be coupled to the furnace CFD model. The changes in bed mass due to drying, pyrolysis, devolatilization and char oxidation are all included in the model. The mass and concentration of gases produced in these processes through reactions are also predicted. The one-dimensional unsteady energy equations of solid and gas phases, which account for the furnace radiation, conduction, convection and heat of reactions, are solved by the control volume method.

The Lagrangian model is validated by comparing its prediction with the experimental data in the literature. The predicted waste bed height reduction, temperature profile and gas concentration are in reasonable agreement with the observations.

The simplicity and efficiency of the model makes it ideally suitable to be used for coupling with the computational furnace model to be developed in future (so as to optimize incinerator designs).

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the use of historical building performance data to identify potential issues with the build quality and operation of a building, as a means of narrowing the scope of in-depth further review.

The response of a room to the difference between internal and external temperatures is used to demonstrate patterns in thermal response across monitored rooms in a single building, to clearly show where rooms are under-performing in terms of their ability to retain heat during unconditioned hours. This procedure is applied to three buildings of different types, identifying the scope and limitation of this method and indicating areas of building performance deficiency.

The response of a single space to changing internal and external temperatures can be used to determine whether it responds differently to other monitored buildings. Spaces where thermal bridging and changes in use from design were encountered exhibit noticeably different responses.

Application of this methodology is limited to buildings where temperature monitoring is undertaken both internally for a variety of spaces, and externally, and where knowledge of the uses of monitored spaces is available. Naturally ventilated buildings would be more suitable for analysis using this method.

This paper contributes to the understanding of building energy performance from a data-driven perspective, to the knowledge on the disparity between building design intent and reality, and to the use of basic commonly recorded performance metrics for analysis of potentially detrimental building performance issues.

The purpose of this paper is to interview Mr. Jingbang Zhang, EVP of Yagao Meihua Hotel Management Co., Ltd & CEO of Madison Brand based in Shanghai, China, regarding the impact of COVID-19 on China’s hotel industry and potential post-COVID-19 trends.

Interview with hotel group CEO and industry leader in China.

Several effects of COVID-19 and potential trends are discussed from a hotel CEO’s perspective.

Tourism and hospitality stakeholders will acquire a better understanding of the impacts of COVID-19 on China’s hotel industry and possible post-COVID-19 adjustments

The COVID-19 pandemic caused global supply disruptions and shortages that resulted in countries battling over desperately needed (medical) supplies. In this mayhem, additive manufacturing (AM) provided relief to the strained healthcare systems and manufacturing environments by offering an alternative way to rapidly produce desired products. This study sheds light on how AM was used globally in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study undertakes a systematic and content-centric review of 289 additively manufactured products made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, quantitative frequency-based text mining and various descriptive analyses were applied that support the investigation of the subject under regard.

Results show that AM was primarily used in the medical domain for the production of standard medical items, such as personal protective equipment (PPE) but also for non-obvious and new applications (e.g. swab simulator, rapid diagnostic kits, etc.). Also, certain paradigm shifts were observed, as the effective move to mass production and the mitigation of problems related to certification and standardization emerged as prominent management prospects. Nevertheless, various obstacles arose and remained in the path of lasting AM success, especially with respect to print quality, raw material supply and technological versatility.

Due to the actuality of the topic under investigation, no comparable study has so far been conducted. The systematic review provides a conclusive and precise foundation for further analysis and subsequent discussions. Additionally, no comparable study mapping such a wide array of different AM products exists today.