air quality

This paper shows the results of a survey conducted among 10 AIVC members countries about air quality in garages and current requirements and regulations in this regard. Large differences were found among countries, not only in terms of the scope of the regulations, but also in relation to the parameters that are considered.  

Traffic sources contribute a large portion of the ambient nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter and ozone concentrations, the three ambient air pollutants with the largest impact on human health in Europe (EEA, 2018). High spatial resolution air quality data capturing the high spatial variability of this traffic related pollution are necessary in order to inform policy. The approach of environmental protection agencies around the world to measure using expensive monitoring stations allows monitoring in high temporal, but not spatial, resolution (Snyder et al., 2013).

The new schools in Canada are designed to improve indoor environment quality while achieving a much better energy performance than the code compliance requirements.  

Norwegian building regulations refer to the NS-EN 15251 and the NS-ISO 7730 to define indoor climate criteria in new buildings. For example, the standards prescribe a temperature band of 20-26°C for a normal office situation. Any HVAC engineer or facility manager would however willingly state that office buildings in practice are run with a much smaller temperature dead-band, and that building occupants would complain if temperatures were as high as 26°C.

Natural ventilation has the potential to provide cooling and fresh air and cut 40% of the total energy consumption of European office buildings. While in the milder seasons natural ventilation is an obvious low-energy choice, if poorly designed it can cause overheating in summer and poor air quality in winter. In order to promote the use and design of naturally ventilated (NV) buildings, it is therefore important to understand how current NV buildings perform in terms of thermal comfort and indoor air quality.

Indigenous architecture’s adaption to its climate and its use of local materials has attracted interest in the search for a sustainable built environment. In Chile surviving examples include the iconic Ruka Lafkenche and the little known Fogón Pehuenche. United by the world outlook of the Mapuche people, these two examples are located in different climates and as a result different construction systems have developed.

In this work is analyzed the improvement of comfort conditions using confluent jets ventilation located near the floor level in front to the occupants in an experimental chamber. In this study are evaluated the thermal comfort, the local thermal discomfort and the air quality levels. The thermal comfort level is evaluated using the multi-nodal human thermal comfort numerical model, while the local thermal discomfort and the air quality levels are evaluated by the computational fluid dynamics numerical model.

With the continuous improvement of the energy performance of buildings, ventilation plays a crucial role in the control of pollutants from indoor sources and related comfort and health effects. However, the ventilation system itself could possibly also be a source of indoor air pollutants such as microbial contaminants. Profound scientific and technical knowledge on the impact of the design, installation and maintenance on the real performances of ventilation systems is currently lacking.