comfort

The software bSol addresses to the professionals (engineers and architects) eager to optimize the parameters of a building project according to the local environment.

This paper presents the concept and a test implementation of a digital representation of the physical world designed to assess comfort quality in future environments. An integrated set of physical phenomena is modeled three-dimensionally to investigate the dynamic behavior of design objects holistically. The formulation supports the integration of computational simulation in the performance-based design process. It employs the principles of geometrical and physical selfcontainedness to avoid that complex geometrical and physical circumstances have to be specified at design time.

Night ventilation has been applied successfully to many passively-cooled or low-energy office buildings. This paper analyses the thermal comfort achievable according to European standard EN 15251:2007 by applying this strategy in office buildings in Spain. Specifically, the comfort level is evaluated using the Degree Hours (DH) criteria and the maximum indoor temperature.

BR10 requires that all new residential constructions should be built as low energy housing. In order to meet these requirements residential buildings must be equipped with far more complex technology, than conventional housing. This, for example, could be a combination of mechanical balanced ventilation, natural ventilation, heat pumps, solar heating, solar cells or automatic sunscreens.

This paper examines the performance of a large new multi storey building which relies exclusively on natural ventilation. The building is designed to provide the main library and associated functions for Coventry University. The research outlines the sophisticated control systems necessary for such a building and provides an analysis of the strategies and techniques required for its implementation. A case study of user satisfaction demonstrates that a large naturally ventilated building can provide a pleasant comfortable environment for occupants.

Subjective experiments were carried out in a climate chamber using Japanese subjects, in order toevaluate human comfort at very low humidity. Two levels of absolute humidity were set. Three airtemperature conditions for each absolute humidity level were examined. People were exposed in achamber for 90 minutes with sedentary activity.Subjective break up time got significantly shorter at extremely low absolute humidity.

The traditional house of Japan, Kominka, is constructed of wooden pillars and beams, and clay walls.The indoor space in the Kominka remains cool in summer because overhanging eaves block solarradiation and the open frame airs out. Technology to make small cracks airtight is undeveloped.Consequently, drafts enter the indoor space and chill occupants during winter. Improvements of indoorclimate have not been realized. This report describes "Yukis house," which is a Kominka built in thelatter 1700s, defined as a residence of the privileged class.

Heating and cooling of buildings may be done by water based radiant systems, where pipes areembedded in the concrete slabs between each storey. Hundreds of buildings with such systems arenow being constructed or are in operation in Europe.Because these types of systems are using the building mass for heating and cooling it is oftenquestioned how the systems should be controlled and operated. The present paper presents aparametric study of different control and operation concepts for both cooling (summer) and heating(winter) periods.

This paper describes an educational tool developed at LASH ENTPE (France) laboratory. Theobjective of this tool, called SIMUBEMS, is to familiarize ENTPE students with control techniques andallows performing simulations in order to test heating and ventilation control strategies.An office building equipped with an HVAC system has been used to carry out the simulations. Themodelled zone is 9 m long, 6 m large and 2.5 m height and has large glazed faade.

Because we spend most of our time in enclosed spaces, thermal comfort of buildings rose increasinglyand then energy consumption correspondingly is increased, aggravating the pollution of naturalenvironment. Integrating phase change materials (PCM) into building walls is a potential method ofreducing energy consumption in passively designed buildings. However, there is a strong need forexperimental data to evaluate the capacity of PCM to stabilize the internal environment when there areexternal temperature changes and solar radiations: that is the purpose of our article.