The design and development of two energy and environmentally sustainable prototype office buildings.

The C-2000 program for advances commercial buildings is an awards program to assist in the development of energy efficient and sustainable building technologies and design in Canada. The objectives of the C-2000 program are to develop energy efficient buildings using sustainable materials and technologies. The buildings must provide a high level of occupant comfort. The technology must be transferable to the current building industry and must meet market constraints.

Modelling coupled heat and airflow: ping pong versus onions.

By means of a case study involving a severe case of coupled heat and sir flow in buildings, this paper aims to quantify the differences resulting from different methods (ping-pong and onion approach) for linking heat and air flow models. The main conclusion is that when used improperly, the onion method will have implications in terms of computing resources, but - more seriously - the ping-pong method may generate substantial errors.

The Dutch E Novation Program: indoor air quality in dwellings before and after renovation.

The Dutch E novation program is a national demonstration program in which dwellings with high energy consumption, moisture and mould problems and poor indoor air quality were renovated, with special attention to the selection of the heating and ventilation systems, thermal insulation and the building physical details. A number of indoor air quality parameters were monitored before and after renovation, showing an important improvement in the indoor air quality.

The use of tracer gas methods for detailed airborne moisture transport study in buildings.

Three different examples illustrate the possibilities offered by the use of tracer gas methods for detailed airborne moisture transport studies in building. The first one concerns an individual dwelling with severe condensation problems, the second one gives an example of statistical data collection of humidity related parameters in 18 apartments and the last one focuses on the evaluation of the amount of water evaporating from the building materials of a recently built low energy dwelling and on the energy consumption required for drying the construction.

Fan pressurization measurements by four protocols.

Thirty-one independent fan pressurization measurement series were performed on seven apartments in three family housing buildings at Fort Riley, Kansas, using four protocols. The tests followed procedures in new or revised fan pressurization standards by the International Standards Organization (ISO), American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) and Canadian General Standards Board (CGSB). In addition, the effect of interzonal flow was considered. The three standards gave similar results.

Predicting indoor airflow by combining network approach, CFD and thermal insulation.

This paper describes a method which aims to generate an overall view of multizone building air flow by integrating methods for bulk air flow analysis, air flow field analysis, and building thermal analysis. This has been achieved by implementing a computational fluid dynamics approach within the ESP-r building energy simulation environment which already incorporated a model air flow network approach. The current state of the method is demonstrated by a case study. The main conclusion from this is that the integrated method is very promising.

Trickle ventilators: effective natural background ventilation for offices.

Approved Document (AD Part F1) of the Building Regulations [1] for England and Wales identifies trickle ventilators as an option for providing natural background ventilation in commercial buildings. This paper reports the results of a field measurement study carried out at BRE during the winter of 1994/95 to assess the effectiveness of trickle ventilators. Two occupied office rooms were equipped with trickle ventilators and measurements were carried out for a fortnight period in each office, with the ventilators closed during the first week followed by a week with them open.

The indoor air quality and the ventilation performance of four occupied residential buildings with dynamic insulation.

Dynamic insulation has been used in non domestic buildings for 20- 30 years in order to reduce the heat loss and to bring preheated air into the buildings. Dynamic insulation means a construction where the air is being forced through the insulation, usually from the colder outside air into the heated building. The Norwegian Building Research Institute has been engaged to evaluate 12 row houses, with dynamic insulation used in the roof, which has been built in the Oslo area. 4 of the houses were monitored over a period of time.

The impact of various ventilation remedies on radon levels and local building environment in a UK test house * some preliminary results.

The Building Research Establishment is currently investigating the impact of various radon remedies at a radon affected test house. Tests aim to assess how different ventilation strategies affect indoor radon levels and the building environment. Those examined include natural underfloor ventilation, mechanical underfloor ventilation (supply and extract), and whole house pressurisation. The test house has a suspended timber floor with an inaccessible underfloor space and is typical of much of the UK housing stock except for indoor radon levels regularly in excess of 1000Bqm^-3.

The combined use of CFD and zonal modelling techniques to aid the prediction and measurement of ventilation effectiveness parameters.

In order that sampling points may be strategically located, it is desirable to have knowledge of the spatial variation of ventilation eflectiveness parameters prior to measuring them using tracer gas sampling techniques. The research described in this paper is being carried out to establish a tracer gas sampling strategy as well as to facilitate the prediction of ventilation effectiveness parameters. The procedure developed requires the division of the internal space into a large number of cells and, by the application of CFD, the mass flow rates between adjacent cells to be established.

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