English

Painting large objects like cars or trucks usually generates high levels of pollution that can be eliminated by operating in a closed painting booth equipped with a blowing ceiling which produces a vertical ventilation flow. When the process does not allow the work to be carried out in a completely confined space (in the presence of a travelling crane for example) one of the only ways to remove pollution is the ventilated area. A basic ventilated area is merely a floor area of an industrial premises located above a pit equipped with an air exhaust system.

Night-time cooling of buildings is a recognized way of reducing the use of air conditioning, and hence energy consumption. The paper describes the construction and testing of a latent heat storage system, which uses a novel combination of night cooling, heat pipes and phase change materials (PCMs) and has the distinct advantage that it is suitable for fitting to existing buildings. The design of the heal pipe/PCM heat storage unit is briefly discussed.

All buildings, depending on their design and particularly on how they are vented, are polluted to some extent with radon. Radon and its daughters may be trapped within buildings and accumulate there, thus threatening the health of their dwellers. Radon is an inert radioactive gas whose emanation into the building can mostly come from the underlying soil and from the building materials. The unhealthy buildings risk starts to act with tendency of saving energy and the related limitation of room ventilation to minimum.

The effect on ventilation effectiveness parameters of the recirculation of air is investigated. The results of work with respect to air change effectiveness parameters is explained and extended to the effect of recirculation on the contaminant removal effectiveness parameter of local air quality index. It is demonstrated, first with respect to a simple system with one supply and exhaust and then by extension to a system with multiple exhausts, that it is possible to calculate the effect of recirculation by means of a simple algebraic expression.

54 fume hoods in three laboratory buildings in Norway were tested for containment using two tracer methods based on European and American standards, in addition to face velocity measurements. In the first method, an abridged version of Nordtest VVS 095, tracer gas was measured at one point in the sash opening, in front of a mannequin placed at the fume hood with a sash height of 30 cm. In the second method, based on ASHRAE 110-1995, tracer was measured in the breathing zone of the mannequin for a 67 cm sash height.

Features of natural wind and artificial airflow are related to human thermal sensation. Based on the existing records of natural wind and artificial air movement, their turbulent intensity of velocity fluctuation, energy spectra. probability distribution of velocity are compared and analyzed.

A currently unresolved problem in building design is the paradox between increasing demand for good thermal insulation, and the requirement for ample levels of ventilation, to maintain a healthy indoor environment. A possible solution to this problem is a supply air 'ventilated' window. This utilises an airflow between panes to pre-heat ventilation air to the building, and to reduce thermal convection losses, thus reducing the window Ue-Value.