English

This paper is concerned with a building situated in the west of Scotland which faces severe weatherconditions with high wind speeds and driving rain occurring frequently. This results in extensivedamage to the building fabric, and affects the internal climate which leads to a serious issue in buildingconstruction. In this study, a three-dimensional numerical model of airflow around the building isinvestigated. This investigation is part of ongoing research on wind-driven rain which has establishedthe importance of moisture stresses, wind flow and rain impacts on a commercial building.

In order to protect heat disorder due to hot environment, the authors have developed a model forpredicting body temperatures, which has the following three characteristics: 1) regulatory thermalsweating is expressed as a linear function of the mean skin temperature under constant metabolic rate,2) sweat efficiency is expressed as a function of skin wettedness, and 3) the effect of wetted clothing,defined as clothing wettedness, caused by dripping sweat on physiological responses is considered.We proposed a prediction formula of heart rate in hot environment based on our model.

Formaldehyde has been widely used as a disinfectant and preservative in medical fields. Medicalstudents during their dissection course are exposed to formaldehyde, whose exposure is recentlyconsidered to be one of the causes of multiple chemical sensitivity. At first, we evaluated formaldehydeexposures that occurred in the gross anatomy laboratory with a general ventilation system.Formaldehyde in air was sampled by an active 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine (DNPH)-silica gel cartridge,extracted with acetonitrile and analyzed with a high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).

Recently, a big change in indoor air environment has been recognized. This new problem is caused byhigh air tightness, high adiabatic and newly building material, and has been the cause of healthproblems which is called Sick Building Syndrome. This study has been conducted to understand thepresent state of indoor air pollution by chemical pollutions in 23 Japanese large-scale buildings to beopen for public people. We also investigated the personal exposure level of employees under theperiod of working at the above-mentioned building and of staying at individual houses.

In this study, we monitored the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in a high-speed train passengercabin by the in-situ non-dispersive infra-red (NDIR) method in order to investigate the effects of variousfactors, such as number of passengers and the presence of tunnels on the CO2 concentration levels.We found that the CO2 concentration was strongly related with the number of passengers andcorrelated with the presence of tunnel regions. The CO2 concentration increased with increasingnumber of passengers and increasing tunnel residence time.

Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems, often do not achieve the same level as itachieved at commissioning. An appropriate system analysis for Fault Detection and Diagnosis (FDD)can save material and energy significantly. FDD technology optimizes the use of the components ofthe system, so that they only be replaced or corrected when they are no longer useful. This paperpresents a complete methodology of introducing warning signal component in building managementsystem, which gets automatically activated as and when faults occur.

In Japan, sick house syndrome has been a problem owing to air tight houses and change of a life style.For this reason, the building standard law was revised in July, 2003, and it was defined that 0.5 times ormore per hour need to be ventilated in the case of a residential room.On the other hand, radiation heating systems, such as a floor heating, have spread in the residence inrecent years. The features of these heating systems are that an indoor air-flow distribution is uniform,that the distribution difference of an indoor vertical temperature is small, etc.

We have sought to accurately quantify automobile HVAC air flow rates in four passenger vehicles,under a range of different ventilation settings and speeds. We used Sulphur Hexafluoride (SF6) as atracer gas, coupled with a portable doser/sampler system to quantify flow rates and leakage.Results of this work indicate a linear increase in HVAC air flow rate with increasing vehicle speed forall vehicles. Older vehicles were much less airtight than newer vehicles, a likely reflection on improveddesign and reduced door seal deterioration observed in the newer vehicles.

It is well known that volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from construction materials and officeappliance occasionally have influence on human health. It is a social request that manufacturersreduce VOC emissions from their products. To measure emissions from materials, a high-precisionchamber is required that can control environmental conditions such as ventilation, temperature,humidity, air flow, and VOC concentrations.

Air-conditioning, the powerful indoor-climate control system, is becoming widespread throughout theworld. As the dissemination accelerates, building design itself is changing drastically, and buildings arebeing designed to adapt to air-conditioning. This kind of change can be regarded as an evolution ofbuilding design; on the other hand, energy consumption in buildings has been increasing drastically.Today, more than one third of the global warming gas emissions in Japan are considered to come fromthe building sector.