model

Since the 1970s, many authors have discussed the impact of poor airtightness on building energy use, indoor air quality, building damage, or noise transmission. Nowadays, because poor airtightness affects significantly the energy performance of buildings, and even more significantly with low-energy targets, many countries include requirements for building airtightness in their national regulations or energy-efficiency programs. Building pressurization tests are increasingly used for compliance checks to energy performance requirements and may result in severe penalties.

Exposures to elevated concentrations of airborne fine particulate matter with diameter ≤ 2.5 µm (PM2.5) have been linked to multiple negative health effects. Investigations into PM2.5 exposures primarily focus on external concentrations, which are easier to monitor. However, there is a growing interest in indoor exposures, as people spend up to 70% of their time at home, concentrations in dwellings may have a greater influence on personal exposures.

The Universal Thermal Climate Index UTCI assesses the interaction of ambient temperature, wind, humidity and radiant fluxes on human physiology in outdoor environments on an equivalent temperature scale. It is based on the UTCI-Fiala model of human thermoregulation and thus also allows for thermal comfort prediction.

Failures can lead to a series of problems in the complex heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems in buildings. Fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) is an important technology to solve these problems. Models can represent the behaviors of the HVAC systems, and FDD can be realized with models. Using the model as intermediary, a link between system simulation and FDD can be built. Simulation has provided a convenient platform of operation for FDD, the overall simulation methodology in FDD of HVAC systems is briefly introduced.

An extended top of the roof can induce the upflowing wind which flows close to the wall and in this way it increases the intake airflow rate in the air gap. A model was set up to save energy with the consideration of a suitable thickness of the air gap and a suitable length of the extended top. The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was employed to simulate the wind field in the ventilated roofs with extended top and the cases were carried out according to Changsha’s climate parameters in China. The results show that the extended ventilated roof works very well in summer.

Earth-to-air heat exchangers are energy-efficient systems that use the ground for cooling in summer and heating in winter. Design, simulation and planning tools are available in the market, and earth-to-air heat exchangers are well-accepted in the built environment. Furthermore, there is a wide knowledge on their performance in operation. Based on long experiences in the design and operation of earth-to-air heat exchangers, pre-defined operation strategies are applied in ventilation concepts.

Reducing adventitious infiltration in order to save energy is important and is highlighted by the building standards of many countries.  This operational infiltration is often inferred via the measurement of the air leakage rate at a pressure differential of 50 Pascals.  Some building codes, such as the UK’s Standard Assessment Procedure, assume a simple relationship between the air leakage rate and mean infiltration rate during the heating season, the so-called leakage-infiltration ratio, which is scaled to account for the physical and environmental properties of a dwelling.  The scaling d

Enhancing the energy efficiency of buildings imposed by global warming and by the perspective of fossil fuel dwindling requires new technical solutions, more efficient. The race for efficiency directly affects ventilation and air tightness of buildings, the main potential causes of heat loss in homes. If heat recovery is emerging as an effective solution to meet energy performance and indoor air quality in climates with harsh winters, some other solutions appear to be very efficient in moderate climates.

This paper presents a three-dimensional zonal model, ZAER, for heat transfer and air flow calculations. It is based on an intermediate approach between single-air-node and CFD models. The indoor air volume is divided into macroscopic homogeneous zones. Heat and mass balance equations are written for each zone, while the mass flow rates across the interfaces are calculated by power pressure laws. The simulation tool ZAER allows the determination of temperature fields and air flow distributions inside unconditioned buildings, taking into account external boundary conditions.

A zonal model is an intermediate approach between computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and single-room models. It can give results faster than CFD and be more accurate than single-zone models. It has been used to provide some global information regarding thermal and flow parameters within a room. In this review, due emphasis is given to the commonly used pressurized zonal model - the power law. Qualitative validations show that the power law model reasonably predicts well for natural convection.