Past Meetings

November 2012 Monthly Meeting

When
-
Meeting Title
Blast Resistant Design
Location

Aceh Community Room
Mercy Corps, 45 SW Ankeny St
Portland, OR 97204

Presenters
Eve Hinman, Hinman Consulting Engineers
Description

This course will focus on the concepts of blast resistant design as they relate to building envelope systems. The differences between ballistic, blast, and impact resistant designs will be discussed along with lessons learned from previous blast event. Opaque and transparent wall and roofing systems will be discussed within the context of blast resistance mitigation.

Eve Hinman pioneered the field of blast engineering. In 1983, she became one of the first structural engineers in the United States to take on this highly specialized design work, when the bombings of the U.S. embassy and Marine Barracks in Beirut brought to the attention of the Federal government the need for anti-terrorism solutions. Since then she has designed nuclear missile silos, NATO military facilities, industrial buildings subject to accidental explosions, and civilian buildings vulnerable to terrorist attack.

Eve received her doctorate in Engineering Mechanics, and her MS and BS in Civil Engineering from Columbia University (with structural emphasis). She is a registered Professional Engineer in California and New York.

October 2012 Monthly Meeting

When
-
Meeting Title
Informed Decision-making: Integrated Facade Design and Analysis
Location

Aceh Community Room
Mercy Corps, 45 SW Ankeny St
Portland, OR 97204

Presenters
Mark Perepelitza, AIA, LEED AP BD+C
Description

Mark will present tools and resources for integrated facade design and analysis from the Building Technology Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL). Their latest research includes testing and simulation of complex fenestration materials and assemblies. Tools from LBNL, including Window6 and COMFEN4, can provide valuable information to support intelligent decision-making in the design of integrated facades.

COMFEN supports the systematic evaluation of alternative fenestration systems for project-specific commercial building applications. It provides a simplified user interface that focuses attention on key variables in fenestration design. Under the hood is Energy Plus, a sophisticated analysis engine that dynamically simulates the effects of these key fenestration variables on energy consumption, peak energy demand, and thermal and visual comfort. The results from the Energy Plus simulations are presented in graphical and tabular format for comparative fenestration design cases to help users move toward optimal fenestration design choices. The presentation will include case studies which illustrate application of COMFEN to a number of recent projects. http://windows.lbl.gov/software/comfen/comfen.html

Speaker Bio

Mark is the manager of SERA’s Sustainability Resources Group which provides sustainable design expertise, research and development, and sustainability consulting services to all of SERA’s project teams. Mark brings 20 years of experience in architecture, building performance research, and education. He has played a significant role in the creation of quality public buildings including university academic and laboratory buildings in Oregon, California, Colorado, Minnesota, and Ohio. Mark teaches university courses on building enclosure design and performance, and has presented at recent conferences on related topics. Mark’s study of high performance European façades included sessions in Seattle in 2010, and a symposium with leading practitioners and researchers from Europe and North America in San Francisco in 2010 in collaboration with LBNL, CBE, and the Pacific Energy Center.

September 2012 Monthly Meeting

When
-
Meeting Title
Electronic Leak Detection for Building Envelopes
Location

Aceh Community Room
Mercy Corps, 45 SW Ankeny St
Portland, OR 97204

Presenters
Tom Cooper, Progeo Monitoring
Description

Electronic leak detection for roofs in almost any form, whether it is manually practiced or computer controlled, is based on the following principles:

  1. High inherent electrical resistance of roofing membranes;
  2. The ability of water to conduct and at the same time to act as a resistor to electrical current;
  3. The ability of other materials to conduct and resist electric currents;
  4. The ability of water vapor to distribute and concentrate in areas in the roofing envelope.

The first 3 combined elements can shape an electrical field which allows one to detect leakage in membranes and to determine the location of such leakage and the 4th principle allows systems to measure increase in overall moisture in a building envelope, indicating and roughly locating a leak. We are going to demonstrate how the 2 widely used manual methods of leak detection and how the automatic leak detection systems utilize the 4 principles. We will discuss automatic leak detection including detection of leakage at penetrations and edges of building envelopes, leak detection for multi-layered roofs utilizing more than one discreet membrane or an impermeable vapor barrier acting as one of the membranes, and how vapor tracking in a roofing envelope can help determine leakage.

Thomas Cooper is the Executive Vice President of Progeo Monitoring of North America. He is responsible for business development, AIA Continued learning programs, and corporate client services.

Before coming to Progeo, Thomas was the Managing Director of Green Roof Solutions, Inc. a component manufacturing company in Chicago which produced materials for the burgeoning green roof industry. Green Roof Solutions supplied branded components to major membrane manufacturers for inclusion in their green roof systems product offering. Tom is a member of RCI and the Gulf States Construction Specifier’s Institute Leadership group.

May 2012 Monthly Meeting

When
-
Meeting Title
Electronically Tintable Glass: A Project Showcase
Location

University of Oregon-Portland
White Stag Building
70 NW Couch, Room 142

Presenters
Del Bankston, SAGE glass
Description

We live in a dynamic environment, but until now our building enclosures have been static in nature – unable to effectively control the flow of the sun’s light and heat into buildings from hour to hour and from season to season. Electronically tintable glass provides the means to develop a dynamic façade with variable visible light transmission and solar heat gain coefficient, which saves cooling and lighting energy, and solves problems of excessive solar heat gain, glare, fading and the need for unsightly blinds. In fact, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) states that their goal of a zero energy building in 2030 cannot be achieved without the use of dynamic glazing. Electronically tintable glass is now commercially available and is being actively specified and installed in building envelopes.

This session will briefly review dynamic electrochromic glass performance characteristics and the benefits to glazing contractors. The presentation will then focus on a number of diverse case studies to demonstrate the application of electrochromic glass in different building types and glazing applications to achieve different objectives such as glare control, heat control, daylighting, occupant comfort and to facilitate sustainable design. A discussion of installation will also be included.

Del Bankston has 35 years experience in the fenestration industry, beginning in 1976 as a glazier for 8 years, an owner and operator of AGA and AGC for 10 years, then taking on sales and management assignments across the nation including strategic cities: Seattle, WA; Portland, OR; San Francisco, CA; Denver, CO; and New York, NY. Bankston is Regional Sales Manager for SAGE Electrochromics and is responsible for the development and management of sales in the western region of the United States.

Prior to SAGE, Bankston worked as strategic partner and business developer for Serious Energy, formerly Serious Materials - a clean tech, energy Efficiency Company. He was responsible for establishing a presence in new markets nationwide and participated in strategic planning and forecasting.

April 2012 Monthly Meeting

When
-
Meeting Title
Sealant Survey: Chemistry and Uses
Location
Aceh Community Room Mercy Corps, [45 SW Ankeny St](http://goo.gl/maps/6MTup/) Portland, OR 97204
Presenters
Dave Kimball
Description

A survey of sealant types and chemistry with a focus on selection basics, failure modes, and differences between sealant choices.

Dave Kimball began his 32-year career at Dow Corning Corporation in Midland, Michigan and has spent the last 26 of those years in the World of Sealants. Dave spent eight years in Dow Corning’s Elizabethtown, Kentucky Sealants Manufacturing Plant primarily in Quality and Technology Development roles. Then Dave moved to Northern California in a Technical Service Specialist position for Construction Products in the Western Region. In 2003, Dave returned to Midland, Michigan in a Senior Technical Service Specialist Role. In March 2007, Dave moved again … this time to the Houston, Texas area as a Field Application Technical Specialist including Technical Service Responsibility for the Western U.S. and Canada.

March 2012 Monthly Meeting

When
-
Meeting Title
Edith Green Wendell Wyatt Federal Building Modernization Tour
Location

Edith Green/Wendell Wyatt Federal Building
3rd & Jefferson

Presenters
Jennifer Taylor, SERA Architects
Troy Dickson, Howard S. Wright
Jeremy Mucha, Benson Global
Description

As the trend toward re-using buildings grows, re-skinning buildings will become ever more prevalent.  Presenters from SERA, Howard S. Wright, and Benson will give a very brief presentation and then a tour of the building emphasizing the story of the envelope.  The tour and presentation will tell the story of the project and the envelope.  Please bring a hard had and construction appropriate footwear.

February 2012 Monthly Meeting

When
-
Meeting Title
Challenges and Opportunities from Design and Construction of Rainscreen Precast Concrete Wall Assemblies
Location

University of Oregon-Portland
White Stag Building
70 NW Couch, Room 142/144

Presenters
Claude Louvouezo, AIA
Description

Traditionally precast panel wall assemblies have been designed as face seal systems. In these systems weather tightness relies on water repellence treatment of the panels and on the detailing of the panel joints, such as binary sealant joints. More recent designs have attempted to incorporate rainscreen principles in the design of precast panel wall assemblies. In a typical rainscreen construction, the backup wall is installed first and then weatherproofed prior to the cladding installation. Such sequence happens to be challenging or impractical when the precast panels are designed as curtain wall to be hung on the building structure. The presenter has been involved in projects which address the need to install the precast panels first while incorporating a drainage path in the wall assembly. This presentation will discuss case studies and lessons learned from three projects recently completed in Vancouver, BC and Portland, OR.

January 2012 Monthly Meeting

When
-
Meeting Title
Continuous Insulation
Location

University of Oregon-Portland
White Stag Building
70 NW Couch, Room 142/144

Presenters
Dave Young
Description

Discussion of challenges with continuous exterior insulation