air quality

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.

In this work the evaluation of indoor air quality in a classroom equipped with cross-flow ventilation is presented. A numerical methodology, based on comparison with experimental data, used in the evaluation of the air exchange rate, airflow rate and the age of the air, was applied in the first phase of this work. The evolution of carbon dioxide inside spaces, with different airflow typologies, was then predicted in the second part. The study was based on a school located in the South of Portugal. In the experimental methodology the tracer gas decay method was applied.

The air quality in laboratories has a profound affect on occupant health and safety. Reducing the timeof exposure and the amount of contaminant can improve the occupant environment and have directimpact on health and safety. In this study, a novel ventilation system which introduces benchexhausts is proposed. The system offers the potential for application in new and existing researchlaboratories to effectively remove airborne contaminants at the bench using a technology that is costeffective and efficient.

In this article the concept of a new energy-efficient office building and results of a 3-year monitoringare described. The monitoring was performed within the German funding programme ENOB.In this building most of the offices are naturally ventilated and passively cooled. Another focus of theenergy concept is on regenerative heating.Monitoring results show that the integrated planning enabled a very low consumption of energy forheating, ventilation, cooling and lighting.

The effect on Indoor Air Quality of painting at home while resident stays at home has been discussed. This paper presents a case study of the effects. A normal Scandinavian apartement has been refurnished with new paint on the walls and ceilings and the VOC emissions have been followed during eight weeks. Two types of low-emitting paint was selected for the study. A paint shop rolled two layers of new paint on the walls and ceiling in two rooms in the flat.