case study

In the context of energy saving, new buildings are becoming more airtight and purpose-provided, often central mechanical ventilation is required to create and sustain a healthy indoor air quality (IAQ). This policy is summed up by the well-known energy efficiency mantra “Build tight, ventilate right”.

By using natural driving forces, hybrid ventilation systems reduce fan energy consumption in buildings. They are of increasing interest as they help to improve buildings energy efficiency while ensuring good indoor environmental quality. However, the performance of these systems is variable and dependent on climatic conditions. Besides, the plurality of openings, variable airflows, and unstable flow patterns make the measurement of the performance of natural or hybrid ventilation systems a challenging task.

Lecture rooms with their high, quickly fluctuating internal gains, e.g. changing from no occupation to full occupation within some minutes, are quite challenging when good indoor air-quality and thermal comfort is required in an extremely low energy building context.
One essential aspect is the perfect control of air flow and temperature based on reliable, continuous measurement in all relevant parts of the ventilation system.

Previous work involving literature review, simulation tool analysis and interviews with world leading building performance consulting engineers and designers has shown that building performance simulation (BPS) is mostly limited to code compliance checking of the final building design whilst it could provide useful information and guidelines throughout the entire design process [Hopfe et al., 2005/ 2006].

Occupant evacuation dynamics is a kind of manybody system of strongly interacting persons. A great deal of factors should be taken into account in the study of fire evacuation, such as human behavior, fire products and architecture.

The energy consumption needed for establishing a good indoor climate in shopping centres is often very high due to high internal heat loads from lighting and equipment and from a high people density at certain time intervals. This heat surplus result in a need for cooling during most of the year, typically also during the winter, and often the needed cooling is provided by a mechanical ventilation system with integrated mechanical cooling.

The purpose of this study is to figure out the characteristics of thermal environment in a workshop at school in Japan and to propose the improvement method of the thermal environment without air-conditioning systems. In this paper, measurement results of thermal environment in the workshop and calculation results of vertical temperature gradient are shown. In the measurement results, indoor air temperature became very high in summer. Solar radiation was the main factor raising the temperature of PC roof, and large vertical temperature gradient was formed.

DCV systems have proved to be energy saving with correct IAQ in previous studies. In order to achieve correct performance, these systems must be properly designed and tested. The purpose of this study is to identify the possibility of using presence sensors based on movement detection to evaluate the number of people present in a room, and also gather some more information about the real occupation rate of meeting rooms. For that, an experiment in several kinds of meeting rooms, located in different buildings and having different uses has been run.

Steven Beckers and Pierre Lallemand conceived the refurbishment of the European Headquarters in the centre of Brussels. With a low-energy design, sensitive in its choice of materials, the building uses environmentally friendly strategies and meets all modern comfort and environmental standards.

The residential building described is an experimental low energy home, using a hybrid system with natural energy resources and unused energy. Describes its construction and evaluation. Added features include superinsulation and good airtightness, with a calculated heat loss coefficient of 0.97 W/m2K. Passive systems include direct solar heat gain and exhaust stack ventilation. Renewable energy systems include PV modules, wind power and domestic hot water, and a ground source heat pump for both heating and cooling. There is a floor cooling system for summer cooling.