chimney

Children spend the majority of their weekdays in classrooms that often have low indoor air quality and limited financial resources for the initial and running costs of mechanical ventilation systems. Designing effective natural ventilation (NV) systems in schools is difficult due to the intense use of the classroom spaces and the dependence of NV on building geometry and outdoor conditions. Building thermal and airflow simulation tools are fundamental to predict NV system performance in the design phase.

This paper reports on a field investigation of the effect of screening on the induced flow rate in solar chimneys. The solar chimney considered here was a roof solar collector (RSC). It is composed of CPAC monier concrete tiles, an air gap and gypsum board. Two RSC units were integrated into the south-facing roof of a centre single room house of 25 m3 volume. Different types of screening were considered, namely: mosquito net, square net, metal grille and nylon filter.

An increasing impact of ventilation and air-conditioning to the total energy consumption of buildings has drawn attention to natural ventilation and passive cooling. The very common way of natural ventilation in residential buildings is passive stack ventilation. The passive stack ventilation relies on the stack effect created by the temperature difference between air temperature inside and outside a building.

The School of the Built Environment at De Montfort University represents the first in a new breed of naturally ventilated buildings. Bart Stevens reveals the findings of recent heat-load tests carried out to establish the effectiveness of the building's passive engineering.