Blogs
Welcome to our blog page, where we delve into the key services offered at KUSCH, highlighting our expertise through our past projects. We invite you to explore our articles, which showcase our innovative solutions and successful collaborations, along with the diverse capabilities of the KUSCH team.
Stay tuned for more content illustrating our skills and capabilities. If you come across a blog that piques your interest and you have a query, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our team.
Blogs
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Passive Houses
A recent air leakage test on one of our Passive House projects achieved 0.24 ACH@50 (air changes per hour at 50 pascals pressure), well under the 0.6 ACH@50 required to achieve Passive House certification! Compared to the typical range of 5.0 to 15.0 ACH@50 for houses constructed under the energy efficiency requirements of NCC2019, this high-performance home is one of the most thermally efficient buildings in Australia. Pursuit of thermal efficiency without adequate expertise and experience can result in dangerous condensation and mould issues, so it’s essential to engage a registered Passive House consultant when pursuing this level of performance. Passive... -
Articulated Bellows
Significant challenges were encountered in the design of this 100m tall Ø600mm pipe riser, with the initial 1000kN pipe anchor loads (gravity + bellows thrust) exceeding the limits that could be supported by the existing concrete building core. A detailed analysis of pipe thermal effects, construction sequencing and design building movements enabled a reduction in the bellows displacement demands, while the constraints on anchor loads led to the exploration of ways to accommodate movements without generating thrust loads. Articulated bellows were found to be a viable solution with multiple benefits. The bellows were able to be repositioned out of the vertical... -
Seismic Design of services using Dynamic Principles
Seismic design, without bracing! AS1170.4 provides simple, static force-based methods for determining earthquake design actions on building services. But there’s nothing static about an earthquake. Seismic ground motions are dynamic events that shake buildings in dynamic ways, and the standard allows for the design of buildings and building services using dynamic methods. Dynamic analysis of suspended services can demonstrate that under certain circumstances, the seismic design actions of AS1170.4 will result in a relatively small dynamic response. In other words, there are scenarios where earthquake design actions will only cause suspended services to swing by a small and tolerable amount. The...