English

A study by the Australian Institute of Tropical Architecture was undertaken using the energy rating software BERS to determine the influence of using low absorptance paint on the thermal performance of uninsulated houses in the warm humid tropics of Australia. It was found that using such paints reduced the cooling energy load in airconditioned houses and the number of degree hours naturally ventilated houses were outside a preset comfort zone.

This paper presents the findings of two recent studies on the thermal preferences of householders in upland and coastal tropical environments. The aim of the studies was to investigate those behavioural factors that influence a householder's appreciation of an indoor environment. The studies involved 159 households in Kampala, Uganda, and 104 households in Surabaya, Indonesia. The studies indicated that householders made choices regarding their indoor environments based not on comfort sensation alone, but on "real-world factors".

This paper examines theoretically the effects of wind on buoyancy-driven ventilation via some new analytical solutions recently developed by the authors. Three air change rate parameters are introduced to characterise respectively the effects of thermal buoyancy, the envelope heat loss and the wind force. The wind can either assist or oppose the airflow. For the first time, it has been found that for opposing winds, there are two stable ventilation flow rates for a given set of wind and thermal parameter, i.e. the natural ventilation flow exhibits hysteresis.

Breathing walls were installed on opposite sides of a scale mock-up model of a housing structure that was situated in an artificial climate test room. We analyzed the thermal insulation capability. heat recovery effect and indoor climate for the inflow of outdoor air across the breathing wall. The rate of heat recovery reached 30% under strong winds of up to 8 mis. Even when the ventilation rate tripled due to the strong wind, the temperature difference in the vertical direction was less than 2 K.

The typical passive design suggested for residential buildings in tropical hothumid climates is a lightweight building with many openings on the north and south walls to allow continuous natural ventilation, shaded by wide overhangs. In reality most people no longer favour this design approach for several reasons: building durability, noise problems. privacy, and social status. The work presented in this paper challenges the typical design suggestions and shows other alternatives that are more suitable for this climatic region.

The SUNH and SHINE European Commission THERMIE 1996 Targeted Projects aim to demonstrate for European urban housing sector the relevance of a serie of innovative technologies (applied on 10 new 1;onstructions within SUNH and 6 retrofrtting projects within SHINE) to reduce C02 emissions through the implementation of different RUE & RES techniques. After the general presentation of SUNH and SHINE made during the PLEA conference of Lisbon, this paper aims to give a detailed presentation of the most advanced projects using slides and video.

In buildings with passive downdraught evaporative cooling (PDEC), occupants are subjected to environmental conditions which might be characterised by elevated relative humidities, increased air speeds, and time-varying internal conditions. A new physiological model which describes the human thermophysical system, and the active control exercised on it, has been produced. The model predicts skin and core temperatures, sweat rates, etc. on different parts of a seated, standing or exercising human.

The results of numerical simulation on the effects of solar chimney and underground cooling system for ventilation and heating in the new building of Faculty of International Environmental Engineering Kitakyushu University, Japan are described. It was found interesting to see the air flow rates with and without the effects of wind during the cooling period and air temperature during the heating period due to the solar chimney.

A new research project in the Building Research Institute aims at developing a quantitative tool for cross ventilation design for buildings. One of the approaches adopted in the project is the experiment in the wind tunnel, where a full-size cubical building model can be used at this stage. In this paper, mainly the first observation result for the building model without openings is shown and discussed.