The Australian Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme is aimed at improving the energy efficiency of residential building envelopes. The technical basis of the scheme is a multi-zone hourly thermal simulation program, which will be used to calculate annual heating and cooling energy requirements and temperatures in the building to be rated, from which a star rating is derived. This paper gives an overview of the software, and describes the improvements to the glazing model and the model for slab-on-ground construction that were undertaken as part of its development.
Increasing air exchange rate to improve IAQ may increase energy consumption, but this increase may be compensated for by strategies such as free cooling and heat recovery. The frame of the proposed paper is the examination of the potential at a regional level (the Iberian peninsula) of the different strategies mentioned above in typical office buildings.
Municipalities, energy suppliers and building corporations in the Netherlands and beyond show a growing interest in energy management on municipal level. This is stimulated by the government, requiring the formulation and implementation of a policy of energy reduction. This not only affects the energy used in municipal buildings, but in all buildings on the territory of the municipality, including industry and residential buildings. In order to come up with a plan for energy reduction, an analysis of the energy use on the municipal level has to be performed.
In apartment buildings with a collective heating system usually a weather compensator is used for controlling the heat delivery to the various apartments. With this weather compensator the supply water temperature to the apartments is regulated depending on the outside air temperature. With decreasing outside air temperature, the supply water temperature is increased because of the increase in the heat demand. The relation between the supply water temperature and outside air temperature is called the heating curve.
A mathematical model of transient response of floor heating systems to ambient temperature variation is developed based on equivalent thickness method. The model is then resolved numerically using Rungge-Kutta technique and results are presented for various floor and screed materials and styles used in Jordan and the Middleast. Search is then conducted for the optimum configuration with lowest time constant. Furthermore, the effect of various controlling techniques on transient response is then simulated.
The paper analyses the transient behavior of a vertical plate evaporator for ammonia, this piece of equipment belonging to a refrigeration machine or heat pump. The evaporator consists of vertical wavy metal plates, tighten together by welding points. The liquid ammonia is fed at the upper side of the plates and flows film-wise downwards under the force of gravity. The secondary heating fluid is a thermal oil and flows upwards (in counter-current to the refrigerant) at full section.
Detailed simulations of lighting and HVAC energy consumption were performed on a prototype office building in six North American climates. The goal of these simulations was to calculate the overall energy savings attributable to reductions in lighting power density (LPD) from 25.8 W/mP2P (past practice) to 17.2 W/mP2P (current code) to 8.6 W/mP2P (low).
As well as assessing the Building Sickness Score and a measure of stress, the questionnaire uses a double-Likert section rating the liking and importance of up to 24 environmental and organisational and human factors. It has been used primarily in offices to date. This paper discusses the results from 600 occupants from 8 offices that are air conditioned and naturally ventilated. Scores ranged from +19% (greatly liked by the occupants) to -15% (greatly disliked) for a modern deep-plan naturally ventilated building, and were more indicative and sensitive than Building Sickness Scores.
This paper summarises the results of a now completed three year research programme into the modelling and control of variable air volume air conditioning. Three common VAV boxes, used in standard VAV and displacement ventilation systems, were analysed on a rig and new, more detailed, models developed compared to the current HVACSIM+ model. These models were then used to analyse duct loop systems. Although not extensively used in Europe, duct loop systems are shown to save up to 35% in fan power compared to conventional radial duct systems.
Environmental comfort is usually overlooked during both the design and the construction of a building. This may be due to inadequate understanding of the subject on the part of designers and builders, or to a lack of information concerning predictive design methods, the extent to which comfort requirements can be included in the contract specifications, and the methods and tools available for checking whether the results expected are achieved. A hypertextual tool devised to familiarise architects with the issues relating to the quality of an indoor environment is presented.
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