English

The research exposes a critical feedback loop: the building sector's high energy consumption and emissions contribute significantly to climate change.  Warming temperatures, in turn, lead to increased reliance on energy-intensive HVAC systems, further exacerbating the problem. 

Ensuring thermal comfort in air traffic control towers (ATCTs) is paramount, given the exacting demands of air traffic control, which require heightened levels of concentration and vigilance. ATCTs feature extensive glazed surfaces, leading to significant solar gains and heat loss within the indoor environment. To maintain thermally comfortable conditions throughout the year, air conditioning systems are employed to regulate the indoor climate, adjusting for varying thermal load.

Building airtightness is of foremost importance because of its impact on global energy consumption, but also on occupant’s comfort, dimensioning of ventilation systems, hygrothermal behaviour, fire safety, etc. This building characteristic is usually measured with the fan pressurization method, following ISO 9972:2015 standard. This method requires to assume that the pressure difference due to wind and stack effect, called the zero-flow pressure difference, is constant during the test and that its value is the average of pre- and post-test measurements. This 

Controlling air infiltration is crucial to ensure thermal comfort, optimal performance of ventilation systems, and the overall energy efficiency of buildings. The quantification of the overall airtightness of the building envelope, often conducted through pressurization tests, has been widely used. In addition, IR thermography is a valuable complementary tool for identifying and locating air leakage paths.  

Buildings energy renovation is a major priority in most European countries in order to achieve a fully decarbonized building stock by 2050. In France, 7 million homes are poorly insulated and 14% of French people feel cold in their homes. The government has thus implemented an ambitious plan to scale up energy-efficient renovations of buildings to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 while also pursuing a social objective of combating energy precarity. 

Heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, e.g., air handling units (AHUs), play a key role in modern building energy systems (BES) as they account for a high share of the energy usage, e.g., 30 % within the U.S. commercial building sector. Unfortunately, many faults occur during the operation of AHUs leading to higher energy usage and the need for expert personnel monitoring the according plants. The latter is a time-consuming task and is assisted by fault detection systems nowadays.

Long-term continuous measurements of temperature, humidity and CO₂ concentrations were conducted in offices in three buildings of over 3,000 m² and three non-specified buildings of less than 3,000 m². These measurements were carried out to investigate the effect of the hygrothermal environment in winter and summer, with a particular focus on the impact of humidity in winter and the hot and humid environment when air conditioning is turned off in summer, on microbial contamination.

In recent years, population exposure to air pollution has been a major concern. Indoor air quality (IAQ) is mainly monitored with CO2-concentration-based indicators. High levels of CO2-concentration are avoided in buildings when airing by the windows is done and/or when air exchange rate of the existing ventilation is regulated, based on a CO2-level-information. However, as contributing to maintain low CO2-concentration-levels indoors, the increase of outdoor air intake is associated with a more or less important introduction of outdoor air pollutants in the building.

In this work we investigate the bidirectional filtration efficiencies of respirators, such as FFP2 masks and medical masks, under cyclic breathing and different fits. We developed a test bench, which consists of a test chamber with an artificial head, and which is connected to a specially developed artificial breathing function. The exhalation filtration performance of masks can be evaluated by exhaling particle-laden air into the test chamber. Similarly, the inhalation filtration performance can be evaluated by inhalation of particle-laden air from the test chamber.

This paper presents a comprehensive evaluation of Relative Humidity-Controlled Mechanical Extract Ventilation (RH-MEV) systems installed in multi-family social housing buildings, focusing on the assessment of in-situ aging and the impact of maintenance on the performance of the system. Building upon the Performance 2 project conducted from 2020 to 2024, which evaluated the durability and performance of RH-MEV systems over a 15-year period, this study delves deeper into the longevity and maintenance aspects of these systems.