ventilation

The use of natural ventilation components as an enhancement for the ventilation systems has become more desirable in the building sector. The natural ventilation systems play a crucial role in reducing the carbon footprint from space heating and cooling through applications of low carbon technology and heat recovery unit. Low carbon technologies such as windcatchers and turbine ventilators are commonly used in commercial, educational, and industrial buildings for providing thermal comfort within a building and minimising carbon emissions.

The level of airtightness is increasing in newly built Australian apartments. An appropriate ventilation rate is needed to provide occupants with a healthy environment. In 2022, a significant proposed change in the Australian National Construction Code (NCC) would require building tested as achieving less than five air changes per hour at 50Pa to have a continuous flow exhaust.

This study aims to develop and evaluate an advanced control method for acceptable indoor air quality (e.g., particulate matter and CO2) with low energy consumption in a residential space. A ventilation system, an air purifier, and a kitchen hood system are installed in the testbed to maintain a healthy IAQ. To accomplish the objective, we use a double deep Q-network (DDQN) which is one of the reinforcement learning. This study utilizes a co-simulation platform with EnergyPlus and Python.

Radon is one of the common contaminants inside buildings, with maximum presence in high potential areas classified as radon prone areas. This radioactive gas, which comes from the spontaneous disintegration of radium present in the earth's crust, can penetrate buildings and accumulate inside them. The spaces closest to the ground (basement and first floors) are the most affected. Its inhalation in high doses is associated with an increased risk of lung cancer. Several techniques are commonly used to mitigate its presence.

Schools had covered special attention in the last year, due to their importance to organize daily work as well as since most of the children were still not vaccinated. Under this circumstance, the importance of air renewal to reduce the probability of COVID-19 contagion inside buildings was highlighted. 

Throughout history, the human population has experienced major outbreaks of infectious diseases. In December 2019 the previously unknown SARS-CoV-2 virus emerged, which had a huge impact globally. Residents of long-term care facilities (LTCFs) showed to be highly susceptible to infection due to their frailty. Respiratory infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, can spread among others via the airborne transmission route. This is caused by sharing the same indoor environment.

In this study, a sensitivity analysis on the effects of inhabitant behaviour on the performance of ventilation systems is carried out. Inhabitants behave differently in terms of presence at home, window opening, door opening, etc. Relating to the ventilation system, this is reflected in the ventilation demand and consequently the energy consumption, but also in the indoor air quality. Therefore, care should be taken to compare ventilation systems to each other as the inhabitants can be the most determining factor for the performance.

Single-family and low-rise multifamily homes in the United States have become tighter to save energy and enhance comfort. To ensure acceptable indoor air quality (IAQ), mechanical ventilation is also required. As these systems become commonplace in the U.S., various improvements and updates have been made to codes, standards, and voluntary programs such as ASHRAE Standard 62.2, International Mechanical Code, International Residential Code, USEPA Energy Star Home and Indoor Air Plus, and USDOE Zero Energy Ready Homes. 

Calcium Silicate fire protection boards can be used to construct fireproof ductwork for smoke extraction and/or HVAC services. In this paper, the airtightness of the duct system is evaluated. 

Control of HVAC systems may reduce congestion of the electricity grid on district level by shifting energy demand of buildings and increase the self-consumption of local photovoltaic energy. To achieve an optimal control of ventilation, occupant behaviour should be taken into account. To describe occupant behaviour, usually black box models are used and typically need large amounts of high quality training data. Alternatively, use of physical relations allows for a good predictive power requiring less training data.