English

A method of assessing building passive thermal performance for houses in Europe is described. The method is intended to provide the user with a means of understanding the factors effecting the thermal characteristics of the building, while giving figures that will allow the best use to be made of available passive energy techniques. The development and use of this method is outlined, and a description is given of how Genetic Programming will be used in this process.

This paper presents a synopsis of the content of the New Zealand Standard for Energy Efficiency in Large Buildings. This new standard is purported to be 'descriptive'. The paper outlines the three permissible methods for demonstrating compliance with the Standard's requirements. Disadvantages of this approach are stated and an alternative proposal is suggested.

The paper compares the design and measured performance of the relatively conventional Autonomous House and the earth-sheltered Hockerton Housing Project, both in Nottinghamshire, England. These are both attempts by the authors at making houses for the United Kingdom climate that need no non-renewable energy inputs, but are comparable in cost with conventional houses. The conclusion is that high thermal mass combined with superinsulation is effective in giving "zero heating" performance, but it makes sense only if the house is designed for an extremely long life.

The vote of acceptance of the thermal conditions of a built space varies with the individual. The design of the space should consider the occupant's thermal comfort therefore the future users' opinion on thermal conditions. People's opinion regarding the acceptance of thermal circumstances of a room can be expressed by several indices the PMV the scale being the most used for this purpose.

Human thermal comfort in warm conditions can often be improved inexpensively by increased air movement. Two automatic ceiling fan systems are described that regulate air speed to maintain comfort in changing conditions. One system is based on the ASHRAE comfort standard and the other uses the PMV comfort model. In comfort tests at 29°C and 50% RH both automatic systems provided the same level of comfort at steady state conditions as manual control. However the automatic systems were faster in bringing the subjects to comfort.

In the mid 1990's the 'need' to mechanically air condition school buildings became a political issue in North Queensland. Research suggests that school children are susceptible to heat stress, acclimatisation or cultural factors aside. Cooling strategies are also desirable to protect capital investment in building fabric, resources and electronic equipment. Community expectations suggest that air conditioning in the tropics is a 'necessity' to maintain an acceptable 'standard of living'.

Some techniques aimed at the evaluation of microclimatic parameters through the measurement of other indoor physical quantities are critically reviewed. Particularly, the appraisal of the air velocity from the predicted mean vote and the determination of air change from the decay of the C02 indoor concentration are analysed. Important warnings for the use of these methods are underlined and the limits of applicability are pointed out.

The present paper describes a numerical method for analysing threedimensional natural convection in rooms connected to the outside through large openings. The calculations made use of a Computational Fluid Dynamics (GDF) procedure which solves the three-dimensional equations for the conservation of mass, momentum and thermal energy taking into account the effects of buoyancy, heat sources, thermal radiation heat transfer and air flow turbulence.

Condensation phenomena on internal surfaces of buildings are becoming recurrent eventualities in contemporary buildings, particularly in residential buildings. Despite the general belief, this accumulation of water on walls is not mainly due to mass migration from outdoor to indoor, but to a modification of behavioural approaches of people, especially referring to the preferred air temperature.

The wish to improve the energy performance of a building as well as to improve indoor climate can be mentioned as one of the main driving forces behind the introduction of so called 'double facades'. Various types of double facades can be distinguished; the number of possible double facade variants is large. This raises the question in what way the performance of double facades can be predicted during the design process and how well-considered design decisions can be made.