A desiccant cooling unit powered by 14.8 m2 of solar liquid collectors is implemented in a training room in Chambery in Eastern France. The system uses a Lithium Chloride sorption wheel and is optimized to work without auxiliary heat regeneration source. Several parameters are studied in order to decrease primary energy consumption and increase system performance.

This paper describes how the energy performance of single storey multiple-skin facades can be optimized by changing the settings of the facades and HVAC system. The energy performance is analyzed with a yearly whole building energy analysis under Belgian climatic conditions. Three multiple-skin facades are scrutinised: a mechanically ventilated airflow window, a naturally ventilated double-skin facade and a mechanically ventilated supply window. Their performance is compared against the performance of a traditional cladding with exterior and interior shading device.

Active diffusing light pipes (such as hollow tubular lighting) are means of directing and diffusion light (daylight or electrical light) into interior spaces. The two principal objectives of this paper are : 1) to show the development of an advanced new light pipe simulation model and 2) to compare this optical model with another Visual Ergonomics lighting simulation model. The optical model of a diffusing light pipe was realized for the facility of the simulation using the Apilux software.

Multizone network models employ several assumptions, such as uniform pressure and quiescent air inside the zone, which may cause inaccurate results in flow calculations.

This paper investigates airflow in an office room with a displacement ventilation system parametrically using three-dimensional CFD. A numerical study is executed for a typical office room with a dimension of 6m by 6m by 3m height according to a variety of supply air velocities, supply air temperatures and heat source conditions. Internal cooling load is given as 28W/m2  to 111W/m2. In CASE1, a heat source is installed at the center of the room. In CASE2, four heat sources are located separately in the modeled room.

This study is focused on the ground heat pump (GHP) used in heating single-family houses. These systems generate a ground heat depletion which decreases its performances after several years of operation. The study relates to the evolution of ground heat pumps performances and on simples solutions to maintain a stable temperature in the ground. The use of GHP in cooling mode during the summer and the coupling of thermal solar collectors with the boreholes is a good solution to complete the natural ground recovery.

Whereas water can frequently come in contact with wood-based building envelope components, little work has tried to measure and model moisture uptake in orthotropic wood. This paper presents experimental results and numerical simulations of water uptake in softwood. Water absorption coefficients were measured and shown to vary according to the orientation of the fiber grain. Helium pycnometry was employed to obtain porosity values with the intention of approximating the capillary moisture content of the wood samples. From these measurements, average diffusivities were estimated.

Increasingly the fire protection concerns at airports are being addressed using computational fluid dynamics and most of these studies have been based on the prescriptive recommendations on design of an airport terminal building given by appropriate standards. However, this study is based on the performance based principles of so called Qualitative Design Review (QDR), introduced by recently adopted fire safety standard (BS 7974: 2003-2004).

This paper deals with the development and the evaluation of hybrid ventilation control strategies, using both natural and mechanical modes, in residential buildings using a graphical simulation tool. The description of a library of airflow components and macroscopic pollutants models used to simulate the demand controlled ventilation based on indoor pollutant concentrations is provided.

Throughout its thirty year history, the transient energy simulation package TRNSYS has been under continual enhancement by an international group of developers and users. This paper briefly describes a subset of the features that were added to the simulation package with the release of its 16th version in November, 2004.