Building Engineering Facing the Challenges of the 21st Century : Holistic Study from the Perspectives of Materials, Construction, Energy and Sustainability

Building engineering is a complex and constantly evolving branch. The needs of the XXI century society cause a constant change in construction industry due to the need to achieve sustainable and ecological buildings. This affects all levels and phases of this engineering. Given this circumstance, numerous researchers turn their efforts to find optimal solutions for building engineering. For this reason, in this book a holistic analysis of building engineering is carried out from the perspectives that have a greater weight for sustainability objectives. The book is divided into 6 sections: (i) Building materials, which deals with research related to the most innovative and sustainable building materials; (ii) Design and construction, which deals with existing methodologies and advances in design and construction in construction sector; (iii) Building repair and maintenance, which deals with building repair, maintenance and upkeep techniques; (iv) Energy efficiency, which analyses thelatest research on the energy efficiency of buildings and their behaviour in the face of climate change; (v) Sustainability, which analyses the establishment of measures to achieve a more sustainable built environment; and (vi) construction management, which compiles the latest studies in the field of Project manager. The 38 chapters of the book together constitute an advance for the topic of building engineering. The aspects covered in the book are of great interest to various sectors, such as researchers, engineers, architects, legislators and interested parties.

David Bienvenido-Huertas is Assistant Professor in the Department of Building Construction at the University of Granada. He is Visiting Professor at the University of La Coruña. His area of expertise covers climate change in the building sector, adaptive thermal comfort, heat transfer, fuel poverty, energy conservation measures, and design of nearly zero-energy buildings. He is Author of more than 70 research papers and he is Recognized Reviewer of various international indexed journals.

Joaquín Durán-Álvarez is Associate Professor in the Department of Building Construction at the University of Granada. Building engineer in companies in the sector for more than 20 years. His research area is related to the analysis of scientific production, areas of publication and evolution in the Construction Sector. He is responsible for the Observatory of Construction and the Repository of Building Engineering in Spain.