Post-war housing policies had always been one of major drive of improving social welfare and the economic growth of Japan through building industry. I belong to the baby-boomer generation, observing and enjoying the tremendous change and development during the last five decades. For us, one of the most impressive cultural transitions of built environment has been experienced in the housing.
The application of Environmental Design principles can substantially contribute in energy conserving in residential areas. People constitute an imponderable factor for the accomplishment of this target and it is very important to inquire the readiness of people to accept and adopt innovations in their lives in order to achieve energy saving. To investigate the social attitudes, a social research took place in Cyprus. This was attained by answering questionnaires which were applied in four social groups.
The potential for error when using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for investigating internal building airflows continues to be a critical issue in building simulation analysis. This topic is assessed in the current paper by examining the ability of a proprietary CFD code to simulate buoyancy and forced airflow regimes, typical of a naturally ventilated building. This issue is motivated by an ongoing research project, aimed at examining the relationship between external microclimate and internal building comfort, where CFD constitutes a major analytical tool.
The objective of this study is to evaluate the potential of two inertial ventilation techniques (buried pipes and thermal phase-shifting) for passive cooling of buildings in Brazilian climates. Using EnergyPlus, a typical residential building was simulated in two locations (Sao Paulo and Florianopolis). Simulations consider 5 alternatives of passive cooling, combining different scenarios of controlled direct ventilation, buried pipes and thermal phase-shifting. Results show the potential of these techniques in freefloating as well as in air-conditioning mode.
The issue of this paper is to present theoretical results for a solar chimney with thermal mass, where the glass surface is replaced by photovoltaic (PV) modules. A portion of the heat absorbed by the PV modules is dissipated to the air channel in convective form, and it exchanges radiation heat with the concrete wall. These cooling phenomena for the PV modules improve their efficiency with a lower working temperature. Both phenomena are heating process to the air and the concrete wall, that produce natural ventilation. The solar chimney is supposed to be isolated from any building.
A number of studies have examined the potential of using natural ventilation as a passive cooling system and comfort under warm conditions. Tanabe and Karma (1994) conducted an experimental work at 50% RH under different level of air speed. They found preferred speed at 28C to be 1.0 m/s, at 29.6 C, 1.2 m/s and at 31.3C, 1.6 m/s. Although traditional architecture of Iran has a very good background in terms of passive building design strategies for achieving comfort condition, however, they are mostly ignored and people are concerned with the rising costs of electricity and fuel.
Raising the solar reflectance of a roof from a typical value of 0.1–0.2 to an achievable 0.6 can reduce cooling-energy use in buildings by more than 20%. Cool roofs also reduce ambient outside air temperature, thus further decreasing the need for air cond
The approach of the building as a system in Time and its interrelationships with the environment, are presented as a “Matrix of Environmental Value (Ev)” that takes into account all possible aspects of “harmfulness – friendliness” towards the environment,
London’s urban heat island increases the mean air temperature which affects the demand for heating and cooling buildings. The simultaneous hourly air temperature in London has been measured continuously for a year. These data have shown that central areas
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