The Aluminerie Alouette Inc. (AAI) smelter in northern Quebec, Canada recently completed a major plant expansion that includes a new casthouse for the continuous production of low-profile, air-cooled aluminium sows. The radiation and convection heat release of 15 MW to the workplace from the aluminium metal solidification and cooling is significantly higher than that experienced in the traditional water-cooled casting process where the majority of the heat is removed by the cooling water.

If inhaled, welding fumes can be harmful to health, thus exposure must be controlled. A commonly used method of control is local exhaust ventilation (LEV) in the form of moveable capturing hoods but, to achieve efficient capture, this type of ventilation must be positioned close to the fume source and moved as welding progresses, although in practice re-location may not always occur. Alternatively, control may be exercised using a low volume high velocity system (LVHV), fitted either to an existing welding torch or manufactured as an integral part of a torch.

Much attention is given to the consequences of airborne particles on human health and well-being. Wear is one source of airborne particles and contributions in the urban environments from wheel-to-rail contacts and disc brakes cannot be neglected. Traditionally, mechanical wear has been associated with the generation of particles of diameters of some microns. However, the research described has found ultrafine particle generation from wear processes.

A planned new train tunnel under the central parts of Stockholm was intended to be ventilated by natural ventilation and the movement of the trains. However, the amount of heat generated by the trains is so high that natural ventilation would give abnormal temperatures and velocities in the tunnel and at the stations. The heat adsorbed by the rock surrounding the tunnel can be neglected in comparison with the amount transported by air.

In a simple single-zone building with two openings under an opposing wind, a macroscopic theoretical analysis of smoke flow direction and smoke mass flow rate is carried out. Three solutions of smoke flow are identified under the same building geometry, the same heat release rate and the same ambient conditions at the steady state. Two of the solutions are shown to be stable and one is unstable. In the two stable solutions, one is an upward smoke flow with an upper smoke layer and a lower air layer, which may be considered relatively safe in terms of smoke control and human evacuation.

Tracer gas techniques have been the most appropriate experimental method of determining airflows and ventilation rates in houses. However, current trends to reduce greenhouse gas effects have prompted the need for alternative techniques, such as passive sampling. In this research passive sampling techniques have been used to demonstrate the potential to fulfil these requirements by using solutions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and solid phase microextraction (SPME) fibres.

This paper reviews the application of CFD for designing and parametric studies of wind-induced natural ventilation. The approaches employed in such applications of CFD are whole-domain and domain-decoupled CFD modelling. The domain-decoupled technique separately analyses the external airflow fields outside and internal flows inside a building. In the whole-domain approach, the outdoor and indoor airflow is modelled simultaneously and within the same computational domain.

In naturally ventilated environments, indoor temperatures are directly related to the air circulation and conditions of the built environment. Taking natural ventilation as an important comfort source, our aim in this work is to evaluate the design plan interference - in this case, wall shape - on the potential of indoor air circulation to a specific building environment. Indoor air circulation improvements for some simple wall modifications to the original specific plan are analyzed.

There is a growing desire to reduce peak temperatures within non-domestic buildings by accessing the thermal mass of separating floors. These floors are typically formed of concrete and can store reasonable amounts of heat. Unfortunately, they are usually thermally isolated from the room below by a suspended ceiling. Therefore, some architects try to access the concrete by leaving a perimeter gap in the suspended ceiling in each room to allow airflow across the underside of the separating floor. For visual and acoustic reasons, there is the desire to make this gap as small as possible.

In contrast to mechanical ventilation, natural ventilation's performance is usually impacted by uncertain factors, including wind fluctuations, outside air temperature variations, and occupants' behaviours. These factors require a stochastic evaluation process for natural ventilation at the design stage such as quantifying the effective ventilation rates and optimising control strategy.