An assessment concept is being developed for iterative design of office buildings withintegrated energy and indoor comfort solutions. An indexing system has been devised thatincorporates environmental effects of energy use with thermal and atmospheric indoor climatein a score on a common scale from 0 to 100%, called the Eco-factor. Only the operativephase of the building life cycle is considered. Only indoor climate aspects that are closelyinter-related with energy use are considered: Thermal comfort and Indoor Air Quality.
A thermal comfort designer is especially concerned with creating an environment to improvethe physical, mental and psychical health of human beings. The general thermal state of thebody both in comfort and in heat or cold stress is dependent on an analysis of the heat balancefor the human body. Traditional methods of thermal analysis are based on the first law ofthermodynamics. By contrast, the second law of thermodynamics introduces the usefulconcept of exergy in the analysis.
This paper is a keynote address presented at Ventilation, Humidity Control and Energy 24th AIVC Conference.It is a warning for HVAC professionals that are however walking a tightrope. How provide sufficient ventilation for IAQ that yet maintain an appropriate moisture balance without using excessive energy ?Mold is having a severe impact upon us; excessive ventilation and reducing the energy to control the humidity are oftentimes being blamed. Claims have skyrocketed for mold , mildew and humidity-related problems cases.
This is a personal set of comments giving the author's impressions of the papers presented at the conference. A great concern of him is the difference between building scientists and health scientists as indoor air quality issues are investigated.
The set points of supervisory control strategy are optimized with respect to energy use and thermal comfort for existing HVAC systems. The set point values of zone temperatures, supply duct static pressure, and supply air temperature are the problem variables, while energy use and thermal comfort are the objective functions. The HVAC system model includes all the individual component models developed and validated against the monitored data of an existing VAV system.
The aim of the European SSHORT (Sustainable Social Housing Refurbishment Technologies) project is to increase and promote rational and efficient use of energy in the retrofitting of social housing buildings. In this scope, one step was to evaluate with simulation studies the technical and economical interest of selected sustainable technologies on standard collective social housings in participating countries.
This paper describes four simulation models, which reproduce energy and temperature measurements of occupied buildings very well. These buildings represent small to medium size residential low-energy buildings of different construction type, which are typical for mid-Europe. For the simulation, the software TRNSYS is used. The reproduction of measured energy and temperatures in time steps of 15 minutes is well suited for precise predictions on heating energy demand and comfort of the buildings and modifications of them.
Due to its simplicity in installation and maintenance on the one hand, and to its potential to conserve energy on the other hand, the refrigerant modulating air-conditioning system has become very popular. This paper presents the results of an IAQ energy audit of two buildings in Singapore that use that kind of system. The results are compared to those obtained from conventional air-conditioning systems.
The purpose of continuous fan operation is to bring in fresh outdoor air to the conditioned space in order to maintain acceptable indoor air quality. Ventilation not only uses more energy, but it also impacts air distribution system efficiency.This is partially due to various system interactions. The objective of this paper is to quantify the impact of continuous fan operation on energy use and distribution efficiency by introducingtwo new parameters: energy use ratio (EUR) and distribution efficiency ratio (DER).
The infiltration term in the building energy balance equation is one of the least understood and most difficult to model. For many residential buildings, which have an energy performance dominated by the envelope, it can be one of the most important terms. There are numerous airflow models;
however, these are not combined with whole building energy simulation programs that are in common use in North America. This paper describes a simple multizone nodal airflow model