Dr. Samir R. Traboulsi, has been a practicing mechanical engineer since the Seventies. His focus is on HVAC systems in high-efficient building designs, coupled with academic teaching in various technical areas as well as in the areas of operations research, engineering economics and professional ethics.
Samir received his Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering degree in 1973 from the American University of Beirut, AUB., followed by the degree of Masters of Mechanical Engineering in 1975, and Masters of Business Administration in 1980. He completed post graduate courses in system dynamics at MIT 1990. In 2011 he completed his PhD degree, in mechanical engineering at the Beirut Arab University, BAU. .
Samir has published several technical papers and in several worldwide societies. Topics varied from Heat transfer, HCFC phase out plans, energy and heat conversion to industrial applications. .
With this academic background, he continues to be engaged in teaching as a senior lecturer at the American University of Beirut, AUB and Notre Dame University, NDU in Loueize, Lebanon. Courses taught ranged from technical areas such as thermodynamics, controls, building services, HVAC advanced design, and testing, adjusting & balancing, TAB to business and managerial strategies areas such as: operations Research, engineering economy and engineering ethics.
Samir is also an instructor at the Continuous Training Center of the Order of Engineers & Architects, OEA in Beirut & Tripoli- Lebanon. Courses covered areas of green technology and advanced Air conditioning courses. He is a member of the Energy & Sustainability Committee, at OEA.
Recently he is appointed as an instructor at the ASHRAE Global Training Center, Dubai, U.A.E. and checked, reviewed and conducted courses in HVAC Design of two levels, Standard 90.1 -2016 Energy Conservation and Appendix G, Complying with Standard 62.1 Indoor Air Quality, Improving Existing Building Operation, Understanding Standard 189.1 – 2014 for High-Performance Green Buildings (MENA), High Performing Healthcare Facilities, Commercial Building Energy Audits & effective Management in New & Existing Buildings. .
Dr. Traboulsi is an ASHRAE Life Fellow, CIBSE Fellow, NEBB Certified Professional, System Dynamics Society, SDS member, and in good standing member of the Order of Engineers and Architects, OEA, Beirut- Lebanon. .
Samir had served ASHRAE Board of Directors as DRC of RAL, and DAL as well as several Society councils and committees. He is the Founder of the Lebanese Chapter of ASHRAE, in 1995 and continuous member of its Board of Governors. He is a member of the Society Scholarship Trustees, Advisory Board of PROGREEN certification program of the American University of Beirut. He has attended over 40 ASHRAE Winter and Annual meetings and other international worldwide conferences. .
Samir is a Co-Founder of the Lebanon Green Building Council. LGBC, and had served as its president (2008-2012) and as Net Zero Champion of the World Green Building Council. He worked for developing the ARZ, Lebanese commercial buildings rating system in Lebanon. He was a regional Consultant of the UNEP in GCC countries, and National Consultant of the Ministry of Environment in Lebanon. .
He is the Chairman and General Manager of Thermotrade SAL, a leading MEP company since 1985.
The increase in global average temperature was largely attributed to the GHG effects of human activity such as consumption of fossil fuels, petroleum, natural gas etc. and not of a natural phenomenon. The earth’s average temperature broke the record for four consecutive years 2014-2017. In response, conventions and conferences on climate change continued to attract policy makers to address better, on how to limit the temperature increase by promoting sustainable development in the building sector, and particularly, in implementing of NZEB, in studying its commercialization, executing obligations and implementing zero energy building certification system and in preparing plans to promote NZEB for climate change concept.
Net zero is taking several definitions such as net zero energy building and net zero carbon emissions. Most of them have been targeting to reach Net Zero, by the year 2020, but recently was changed to 2030 and 2050. Measurement and verification tools continued to be the challenging factors facing the dynamic behavior of the strategies when implementing NZEB.
Implementation of the strategies covers not only the passive sustainable design architecture such as building geometry, its envelope, natural lighting, energy saving techniques, design, heating storage system and lighting, but also active strategies of renewable energy and of various components and their backups. Societal and economic components are included.
Barriers to reach NZEB may not be easily removed, even if the time is extended. All players and stakeholders are encouraged to minimize mushrooming new barriers.
Ethical and moral issues that are connected, with the development and maintenance of the built environment, became recently, the concerns of many professional organizations and their membership. Such development and maintenance include among other things, buildings, engineering structures and the space.
Although the use of ethics as a term is rare, the ethical considerations have become more prominent in all areas: design, construction, auditing, operations and maintenance, or rating performance, This came after a rapid pace of cultural and technological production revolutions.
Organizations and societies have developed their own code of ethics. Impacts and consequences of built environment such as climate change in our world, exhaustion, depletion of non-renewable, pollution, soil contamination, and availability of clean water drove engineers to become more interested in going beyond the codes. Such interests allowed the companies to develop their own Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR guidelines.
Synthesis of ASHRAE Code of Ethics and sample of CSR guidelines will equip engineers and enable them to gain deeper understanding of the relationships between ethics and the built environment, and the ethical principles and their impact on built environment. It will help to determine the structural decision for an ethical problem. Also, it will allow them a better understanding of professional and ethical responsibilities.
Engineers are expected to know the moral and immoral principles and be able to examine cases and use the different ethical theory tools and come up with optimal moral judgements.
ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1, the Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low Rise Residential Buildings, has been the standard of worldwide energy conservation and model code for commercial buildings in many MENA countries. It became a key basis for codes and standards around the world.
Updates of the Standard continue to present improved energy-saving measures, equipment efficiency requirement, clearer compliance path for renewable energy treatment that are helpful to lead the energy conservation goals and beyond, to net zero energy buildings. With more and more improvements , it will become more difficult for the designers and the authorities of jurisdictions to follow in due time.
The presentation will highlight, and after introducing the path of the simplified approach, the mechanical requirement of new efficiencies, part of them are AHRI related such as efficiencies tables and verification, and equipment like economizers, exhaust energy recovery tables, demand-controlled ventilation fans, mandatory provisions and the prescriptive provisions including controls, and verification, testing and commissioning.
ASHRAE standard 189.1 and afterwards the IGCC standard will be explained and their relationships with the standard 90.1.
Appendix G of the Standard 2019 will demonstrate how the compliance of the building following its path exceeds its performance and energy conservation over the minimum requirement with the standard.
Money makes a large difference in the life of a corporation, an individual and a government. Hence it is very important to learn about time value of money, cash flows occurring at different times with different amounts, and equivalence at different at interest rates. They become the basis of how an engineer in any discipline can take economic value into account in virtually any project environment. Several economic factors and combinations of them will allow moving monetary values forward or backward through time and different interest rates.
Engineering economy involves formulating, estimating, and evaluating the expected economic outcomes of alternatives designed to accomplish a defined purpose. The mathematical techniques will simplify the economic evaluation of alternatives. These tools will enable to make personal decisions whether to buy, rent, and the use credit lines or when having two or more mutually exclusive projects and or multiple independent projects
Simple and compounding interest rates are useful to calculate equivalent sums of money for one interest period in the past and one period in the future, using the nominal and effective interest rate types.
Identifying your minimum attractive rate of return, Present worth, future worth, annual worth, Annual worth, Payback period, Internal Rate of Return, External Rate of Return and Benefit-Cost ratio can be used as tools that can help in comparing and deciding when having two or more alternatives.
Inflation rate and depreciation methods will impact the investor decision