Even when the hills have soaked up the rain and the lush green grass is bent flat in the wind, the Great Glasshouse in Wales can still offer a Mediterranean haven. But how do you create and service such an environment?
Ventilation is pivotal both in terms of indoor air quality and environmental issues such as greenhouse gas emissions. It also has a major impact on energy use in buildings. It is important, therefore that the role md impact of ventilation is filly understood. The purpose of this paper is to review these aspects with particular reference to recent research and developments. Key aspects are concerned with the role of ventilation in maintaining good indoor air quality, ensuring the quality of the outdoor air and incorporating strategies to ensure good ventilation performance.
Experimental studies on natural smoke filling in an atrium induced by a liquid pool fire up to 1.6 MW were carried out. The new full-scale burning facility, the PolyU/USTC Atrium constructed at Hefei in China, was used. Five sets of hot smoke tests with diesel pool fires of 2 x 2 m placed on the floor were carried out. All openings were closed, except leaving a small vertical vent of 0.2 m high for supplying fresh air. Transient variations on the mass of the burning fuel, the vertical temperature distributions and the smoke layer interface heights were measured.
A multidisciplinary approach to microbiological implications of indoor air is fruitful for research as well as management of health and building problems. The Finnish and the Danish mold programs are examples of such productive collaborative studies. Dust samples taken from classrooms in schools where occupants complain of building-related symptoms (BRS) demonstrated an inflammatory potential in vitro, measured as a release of cytokine interleukin (IL)-8.