Multi-Objective Optimization Design of Geometric Parameters of Atrium in nZEB Based on Energy Consumption, Carbon Emission and Cost

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article ‘’ A study on the optimized design of atrium geometric parameters in nearly zero-energy office buildings in cold regions of China’’ is interested article, however, it require major changes. Moreover the technical, novel side of the paper is very week. Following are the comments for the authors to improve the article:

Ø  The article title is more like the statement, authors are suggested to re-write the title with the research impact and novelty perspective.

Ø  Specially remove word ‘’nearly’’ as this is a non-scientific word and represent a general term instead of technical / novel.

Ø  A lot of research is going on for the net zero energy buildings. How authors claim the new aspect for the need of this publication?

Ø  There should be some statistical figured values in the abstract which can quantify the research / optimization and it can make readership of the journal easy.

Ø  Abstract needs to re-write as it is not clear and number of abstract components are missing.

Ø  There should be some proper synchronization of the sentences in meaningful way.

Ø  The abstract should also include the solution of the problem based on the problem statement with some particular application/s.

Ø  The quality of fig. 2 and 3 is very poor. Also, please justify it is necessary to add these figures? What this add to the contribution of this study?

Ø  Figure 4 is completely not readable. Also, figure 5 is not required as it doesn’t add any value in this paper. A lot of information may be avoided, instead a meaningful / logical description is needed in this paper.

Ø  Before the simulation results, authors are advised to add some experimental benchmark validation model for this study.

Ø  Again, the figure 7 gives no meaning and not contain any specific values of the parameters. It is not required.

Ø  Information in the table 1 is also general and should not be in the form of a table. Authors should have the idea when an information is required to be tabulated.

Ø  Activity and/or text inside figure 8 is not readable. Authors should redraw all figures with good high resolution quality for the better readership.

Ø  Figure 9 is also not adding any value addition with respect to the objectives / title of this article. Why it is added?

Ø  Figure 10 and table 3 has overlapped / doubled the same information. Authors should either draw figure or tabulate the data.

Ø  Figure 11 is also not adding any value addition with respect to the objectives / title of this article. Why it is added?

Ø  Figure 12 and table 4 has overlapped / doubled the same information. Authors should either draw figure or tabulate the data.

Ø  Figure 14 and table 5 has overlapped / doubled the same information. Authors should either draw figure or tabulate the data.

Ø  There are too many results in the form of tables and figures, and many figures and tables are unnecessary.  Normally it is not recommended in a research paper. Authors must re-consider the results discussion section and results should be reduced to a significant level with the novel result/s. This is not necessary to add all and each step results.

Ø  There are few old references, authors are encouraged to add latest literature.

Ø  The graphics of the results need improvement. It should be reviewed by the authors in the revised version.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is entitled:

A study on the optimized design of atrium geometric parameters in
nearly zero-energy office buildings in cold regions of China.

The main objective of the paper is to propose a parameter optimization concept based on energy saving goals for the design of nearly zero-energy atrium office buildings in cold areas. It studies the correlation and different degrees of influences between building atrium design parameters and energy consumption. It introduces a new design parameter, the AVR (the body shape coefficient of the atrium) which is proposed as a more accurate one for the energy consumption models of complex atrium space forms.

 The paper is within the subject areas of the journal and in my opinion it should be interesting to the journals readers. It is generally well written and well structured and it addresses a subject that has been in various ways investigated by several authors.

 My comments are as follows:

1. There is a kind of confusion concerning the definitions of the geometric parameters presented in 3.1.1 ( Fig 7 and Table1) and the reference made for the same parameters in the next paragraphs:

-In Table 1 the FDR parameter is defined as Atrium face depth ratio and calculated according to the formula L/W, where L is for width and W is for depth. In the following paragraph 3.2.4.  the same FDR parameter is mentioned as atrium  width-to-depth ratio.

-In the Table 1 the DSR parameter is defined as Atrium depth span ratio and calculated according to the formula L/H, where L is for width and H is for building height. In the following paragraph 3.2.2.  the same DSR parameter is mentioned as atrium  height-span ratio.

I  suggest applying  the geometrical terminology according to Fig 7 in all paragraphs.

2.  In Table 4 the last line is the same as the first one and should be deleted.

3.  In my opinion Figures 8,10.12,14,16 and 17 should be increased in size so that they are easier to read.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Accept