Week 3 Internship Log
During week 3 of my internship, I had the chance to attend another site visit at one of Peddle Thorp’s ongoing high-rise residential projects. A key learning experience from this visit was understanding the electrical component sampling procedures, which was something I had not previously encountered in practice. Observing this procedure gave me valuable insight into quality assurance compliance checking in construction industry. Additionally, visiting a project that is still under earlier stages of construction gave me a clearer understanding of how the high-rise constructions are being managed in Australia. Including the coordination between different trades.
On the modelling side, I continued working on FCJ Benalla project, the main focus this week was improving the base case model. This involved double checking the base case model setup, which was still filled with mismatch between the model and actual architectural drawings. In this stage, I took a lot of time further improving my wall assembly to better match what the architect’s specified. Afterwards. I started by cross-checking the mechanical drawings to confirm which rooms are conditioned and which are not. Since last week, before I received the detailed mechanical drawings. I only assigned it by basing it on the room functionality.
From the updated drawings, I found that the architect has already specified a good building fabric, with external wall R‑values better than the minimum NCC Part J4 requirements. Because of that, I decided to focus on other metrics to improve overall energy performance.
Before changing the HVAC system efficiency, I first explored passive strategies. The component that interested me the most was the canopy design. The initial idea was that extending the canopy and adding vertical shading devices to some windows that receive harsh direct sunlight would reduce the cooling energy demand. I tested three scenarios: the original design with the base case canopy, a scenario without any canopy, and a scenario with an extended canopy plus vertical shading devices.
