Modern Engineering

Optimizing Construction Costs: Strategies for Contractors

2023-12-31T17:33:52+01:00

The article discusses methods and principles of calculating profit in the price of construction work offers, including a risk buffer for exceeding the base scope, budget, and project time. The main part of the article consists of a list of multi-aspect recommendations developed by the author, whose implementation in the contractor's unit can contribute to increasing the profitability of the order portfolio and avoiding economic disputes with stakeholders.

Assessment of Technical Conditions in Adapting a Historic Warehouse's Space Functionality

2023-12-31T17:33:52+01:00

The paper is a case study in the assessment of the technical condition of a building that is an immovable monument located in a former shipyard area. Due to the change in the use of the industrial area and the intention to build a production hall, it was necessary to consider the demolition of the historic building, while preserving as many of its historical aspects as possible. The paper presents a detailed description of the methodology for assessing the technical condition of a warehouse building and describes the proposed variants of its further use.

The Concept of a Novel Cold Storage Device Utilizing the Magnetocaloric Effect

2023-12-31T17:43:30+01:00

Cold storage poses many more problems than heat storage. This is due to the fact that the temperature range is smaller than in the case of heat storage facilities. The simplest example is that cold water chillers operate in the temperature range of 12/7 ⁰C and the heating system operates in the temperature range of 90/70 ⁰C. This means that at the start the volume in sensible heat is almost three times greater. For this reason, cold is rarely stored in the form of sensible heat. Phase change solutions (PCM) or physical reactions (adsorption) or chemical reactions (absorption) are much more frequently used. A completely different idea for improving the operation of cold stores is the use of magnetocaloric materials. These are materials that change temperature under the influence of a magnetic field. The article presents the concept of a cold store that cooperates with a heat exchanger made of magnetocaloric materials (pure Gadolinium). As a result of the preliminary analysis, it was determined that this combination of vapour compressor system and magnetocaloric heat exchanger allows for a reduction in energy consumption for storage purposes at the level of 58,6% in comparison to regular vapour compressor system.