Breadth Proposal

 

The breadths of my senior thesis will focus on roofing system. As designed, the roof is composed of an ETFE membrane roof system supported by five curved box trusses. For my breadths, I propose a change in the roof system. The analysis will be threefold: (1) and energy analysis will be conducted to determine the heat transfer of the roof, (2) a daylighting study will be conducted to determine how much daylight should be allowed into the space, and (3) a structural analysis will determine if changes need to me made to support a different roof. While the daylighting portion is part of the overall lighting design, but will be major component of the roof analysis, so it is included in the breadth topic.

 

(1)   For the energy analysis, the current ETFE system will be analyzed based on solar heat gain and r-value. The goal of this study is to reduce the energy load on the heating and cooling systems. Different types of membrane systems will be investigated to find an optimum balance of daylight allowance and heat transfer.

(2)   The daylight analysis will be conducted to determine how much usable light is provided with the current roof system. If this value is too low, materials with higher transmittance will be considered. If the current system allows in too much daylight, both materials with lower transmittance as well as reduction in the total area of skylight will be considered.

(3)   The structural analysis will largely be based on results from the two previous studies. A change in material weight will require the trusses to be reevaluated. If solid roofing is used in place of the membrane in some areas (in the case of the reduction in skylights) then this could have a large impact on the weight of the roof.

 

The purpose of these breadth studies is primarily designed to show how integration of the various specialties is important for optimizing any aspect of the building. By performing these analyses I hope to gain experience in compromising in design of individual systems to result in the best possible finished product.