English

Most European standards and national regulations about ventilation rates are based on indoor air quality assumptions in terms of contamination. On the other hand, indoor air humidity is important for human health as well. In case of high flow rates during the heating seasons in cold climates, the indoor air humidity tends to low values.

A study of excessive air leakage in the ductwork of a large pharmaceutical plant located in the Southeast United States is executed in order to determine the energy loss associated with the excessive ductwork leakage. Much of the air supplied by the ductwork is delivered to clean rooms. The analysis requires the development of a model that is used to predict the increased energy costs. The model is applied for each 15 minute interval over the entire year (approximately 35,000 data points).

The feasibility of good air-tightness in new buildings can be determined based on the obtained air tightness classes as defined in EN 12237. In this paper a model is described which allows to calculate the energy loss caused by leak losses in ventilation systems based on the air tightness class and the feasibility of realising a good air-tightness.

This paper gives a quick overview of the PRAXIBAT programme led by the French Agency for Energy and Environment to improve building professionals skills to achieve low- or nearly zero-energy buildings. It looks more specifically at the initiatives targeted at ventilation systems installers, with practice-oriented trainings in quasi-real conditions.

Portugal introduced, for the first time, in the 2006 Building Regulations, a requirement on the airtightness of the ductwork in new HVAC installations. A test is required during commissioning. Data on compliance is however still quite scarce to conclude how effective this requirement is in practice.

This paper presents some results from the Work Package 5 in the HealthVent project supported by the European Commission. One of the objectives of the project has been to review and critically evaluate the existing requirements on ventilation and IAQ defined in national building codes and European standards. The project’s focus has been set on ventilation rates, pollutants, noise, temperature and draft in dwellings, offices, schools and kindergartens. This paper presents a summary of the values given in European regulations and results of comparisons.

The Proceedings of the 31st AIVC Conference " Low Energy and Sustainable Ventilation Technologies for Green Buildings", held in Seoul, Korea, 26-28 October 2010.

Air leakage test was carried out according to ASTM E779-03, Standard Test Method for Determining Air Leakage Rate by Fan Pressurization to meet the requirements of the LEED-NC v2.2(EQp2). Air leakage tests for quality assurance can be performed once all work on the air barrier has been completed and all windows and doors have been installed in two high-rise residential buildings. Test units selection was carried out in accordance with the following guidance, California’s 2001 Energy Efficiency Standards.

Recently, in order to reduce energy consumption in the building sector, many air-conditioning systems have been proposed and applied to real buildings. Of particular note, air-conditioning systems that treat sensible and latent loads separately have been assessed as efficient in hot and humid climates. In this study, a highly efficient desiccant system combined with a cogeneration system and a heat pump desiccant system has been developed.

Cold storage is a way to deal with peak cooling loads. Cold storage integrated with building structures is independent of the approach used for building cooling – it can be used with passive cooling as well as mechanical cooling. High thermal storage capacity in a narrow temperature interval makes phase change materials (PCMs) a suitable medium for cold storage in built environments. A set of experiments was performed with the aim to investigate performance of PCM cold storage in building structures under various ventilation strategies.