This paper decribes a research project to compare, using simulation, the summertime comfort and energy use of naturally ventilated and mixed-mode (limited cooling) UK office buildings. A large number of simulations were run to investigate the effects of different design factors, on four facades. Various novel graphical methods, and regression equations, are used to present the results. It was found that without cooling, comfort could only be achieved by using several passive features to reduce internal temperatures.

In this article, we present the dynamic modelling of a heating and air conditioning small output installation in a residential building. The main aim of this modelling study is to acquire a better knowledge of all phenomena which govern the behaviour of small air conditioning installations for residential building using air as the fluid.

The treatment of convective heat transfer at internal building surfaces has a significant impact on the simulation of heat and air flow.  Accurate approaches for the range of flow regimes experi- enced within buildings (buoyant flow adjacent to walls, buoyant plumes rising from radiators, fan- driven flows, etc.) are required, as is the ability to select an appropriate method for the case at hand and to adapt modelling to changes in the flow. A new approach—drawing upon previously pub- lished methods—has been developed for modelling mixed convection within mechanically ventilated rooms.

A model for the design of urban grids and fabric with solar rights consideration taken into account is presented. The model allows the generation and evaluation of the building configurations, preserving the solar rights of each neighboring building, as well as the open spaces among them. The model presents a nomogram of the maximum available volume in which it is possible to build without violating the solar rights of any existing building, as well as the designed one.

Internal   melt   ice-on-coil   tank   with   built-in horizontal tubes is a kind of ice tank used widely. Its discharge process is effected greatly by density different between ice and water. The existing models developed for internal melt ice-on-coil tank are concentric cylinder models which are applicable to tank with built-in vertical tube or to case when all water in tank is frozen, but is not applicable to describing the effect of density difference between ice and water on discharge.

An experimental apparatus (in-situ thermal test unit) and an analysis method have been developed for evaluating the thermal resistance of the building envelope on site. This system estimates the thermal resistance of a wall by heating the outside wall surface and measuring the surface heat fluxes and temperatures on both sides of the wall. The heating panel is attached to the outside surface to avoid the effect of outside weather and to keep the surface temperature constant. The inevitable problem of this kind of testing method is, however, the error caused by the lateral heat loss.

A practical way to estimate the accuracy of sound field analysis by the finite element method in building environments is presented here. The error characteristics curves of several acoustic finite elements are proposed first, then a guideline is given for the 27-node acoustic finite element, developed by the authors, to be employed in the analysis where high accuracy is required. With the issue, sound fields in a reverberation room (179m3) with several absorbent conditions are analyzed by the method to be compared with the measured values, which showed fair agreement.

This communication presents a tool, m2m&Roofsol, which has been developed in the framework of a European project, ROOFSOL, dedicated to the study of passive cooling by roof components. This tool is based on an existing simulation tool, m2m, which allows detailed analysis and simulation of the thermal dynamic behaviour of large building envelopes, and model size reduction techniques[2][3]. Two main problems have been solved in this software extension.

It is necessary to predict the load of the following day and hours to establish optimal thermal storage. In this paper, three kinds of load prediction models, the Kalman filter, GMDH and neural network are used and characteristics and usability of each method were compared. It has been shown that proper selection of input variables, method of preprocessing the meas- urement data and the form of prediction equation gave a large influence on the prediction accuracy, and that each of them could predict the cooling load for thermal storage operation with sufficient accuracy.

This paper describes an effort to link the COMIS 3.0 multi-zone airflow model with the EnergyPlus building energy simulation program. COMIS 3.0 is a network-based multi-zone airflow model developed by a multinational team in the framework of International Energy Agency’s Annex 23 for simulating airflows through the building fabric due to infiltration or natural ventilation, and from zone to zone, as well as the interactions of the HVAC system, ducts, and exhaust hoods and fans.