This paper describes an innovative experimental technique that accurately reproduces natural ventilation flows, driven by the combined effects of stack and wind, at small scale in laboratory models of rooms or buildings. This technique provides a powerful tool for examining the performance of naturally ventilated buildings at the design stage as it may be used to predict quantitatively ventilation flow rates and temperature stratification under a wide range of climatic conditions.
During the past three years, BRE has conducted winter and summer occupant surveys on satisfaction with environmental conditions in 23 buildings. These were a mixture of naturally ventilated and air conditioned buildings. The results presented in this paper are based on a secondary analysis of 5136 completed questionnaires. The aim of the analysis was to determine the effect of ventilation type and season on occupant satisfaction with key environmental parameters: thermal sensation, thermal comfort, humidity, air movement, stuffiness, air quality, lighting and noise.
In recent years, increases in pollution emissions resulting from an increase in vehicular traffic have caused great public concern regarding the quality of urban air and its impact on those working in these areas. In buildings this has led to an increase in the installation of air conditioning systems to 'clean' the incoming air. However, with environmental issues in mind such as high energy costs, the related C02 emissions and global warming, designers are increasingly being encouraged to consider natural ventilation as the primary design option.
This paper describes the design and development of the natural ventilation system of the new Contact Theatre Complex Manchester, UK, designed by A Goldrick of Short Ford Associates. The ventilation design is based on a stack dominant system using an "H-Pot" chimney configuration. The paper describes the development of the ventilation design of both the studio theatre and main auditorium ventilation systems.
Two series of formaldehyde concentration measurements were conducted on the first storey of a medium size, three-storey, naturally ventilated office building. In this building, due to extensive renovations, a variety of formaldehyde containing materials were used. In the first data set, just after the end of work, values of up to 0.4 ppm were recorded. Higher concentrations were encountered in the internal rooms. In the second data set, nearly one month later, formaldehyde concentrations did not exceed 0.2 ppm.
The subject of this study was the indoor air quality of schools with natural ventilation in La Coruna (Spain). We took as reference the C02 H2O and CO contents of both the indoor and outdoor air. In both cases the monitoring was carried out over a 48 hour period using a photoacoustic infra-red spectroscopy multi-gas monitor. The outdoor air quality was seen to be good.
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