Airbase publication

Personalized Environmental Control Systems (PECS) have advantages of controlling the localized environment at occupants’ workstation by their preference instead of conditioning an entire room. A new IEA EBC Annex (Annex 87 - Energy and Indoor Environmental Quality Performance of Personalised Environmental Control Systems) has recently started to establish design criteria and operation guidelines for PECS and to quantify their benefits. This topical session will provide an introduction to the objective/scope, activities, and intended outputs of the annex. 

This work is part of two French research projects “Durabilit'air1” (2016-2019) and “Durabilit'air2” (2021-2024), that aim at improving our knowledge on the variation of buildings envelope airtightness through onsite measurement and accelerated ageing in laboratory-controlled conditions.   
During a past AIVC conference, a publication of the Durabilit’air1 project has presented and discussed an experimental protocol for characterizing assembly of products for buildings’ airtightness in laboratory controlled conditions.   

The content presented comes from the Technical Note (TN) 71 “Durability of building airtightness” published on Airbase, the AIVC bibliographic database.

The content presented comes from the Technical Note (TN) 71 “Durability of building airtightness” published on Airbase, the AIVC bibliographic database.

This work is part of two French research projects “Durabilit'air1” (2016-2019) and “Durabilit'air2” (2021-2024), that aim at improving our knowledge on the variation of buildings envelope airtightness through onsite measurement and accelerated ageing in laboratory-controlled conditions.   
The content presented in this paper is based on two publications in past AIVC conferences (Moujalled et al., 2019, 2018) and a research paper (Moujalled et al., 2021) about the mid-term and long-term changes in building airtightness through on-site measurements in low-energy houses. 

This study sets out to investigate to what extent the air permeability of a building envelope of a dwelling remains constant over longer periods of time. This was evaluated by executing an air pressurisation test in 30 dwellings located in Belgium and comparing these results to the initial measurement results obtained shortly after the construction of the buildings. The time span between both measurements ranges from 293 days to 4045 days. On average, the air infiltration rate of the building envelope increased with 24%, i.e. an increase of 64 m³/h at a 50 Pa pressure difference.

The content presented comes from the Technical Note (TN) 71 “Durability of building airtightness” published on Airbase, the AIVC bibliographic database.

Ventilation of buildings is a good way of preventing transmission of some virus in aerosolized form as the SARS-CoV-2. In many buildings, prevention strategies as window opening and sealing door have to be considered with a multizone approach. Approach. We modelled a residence equipped with a exhaust-only ventilation system where a family is isolating in a pandemic context, with one infected person. We modelled and analysed the impact of opening the window and sealing the door in the quarantine room on exposures. We tested several window- and door-opening strategies. Results.

Occupant exposure to airborne pathogens in buildings can be reduced by a variety of means, including adequate provision of outdoor air by ventilation. This is particularly important in buildings, such as hospitals, which may house a higher number of infected individuals relative to the wider population. In tropical Africa, however, there is evidence that new hospitals built with air-conditioning to cope with the extreme heat are poorly ventilated compared to existing hospitals that were designed to be naturally ventilated.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations have recommended improved ventilation to reduce the risk of indoor airborne infectious disease transmission. These recommendations include increasing outdoor air rates and filtration efficiencies, as well as verifying that ventilation systems are operating as intended. There have also been many recommendations to monitor indoor CO2 concentrations as indicators of ventilation or infection risk, in some cases with quantitative concentration limits.