school building

Responding to the hot humid climate, the Taiwan government expects to broadly install air-conditioning in classrooms to provide a comfort study environment for school buildings and prevent the risk of overheating; therefore, corresponding to the installation of air-conditioning, it is important to draw up the energy-saving strategy while considering the thermal comfort.

In recent years, there has been increasing number of cases using the double skin façade to satisfy both the indoor views and energy saving. In summer, the double skin façade has a heat shielding effect by exhausting solar heat through natural ventilation and in winter, in addition to the thermal insulation effect by the air layer, a heat collecting effect of solar heat can also be expected. On the other hand, the natural ventilation performance of the double skin façade in summer strongly depends on the outdoor conditions, making it difficult to achieve a stable heat shielding effect.

The present study reports the results of a 12-month-long monitoring campaign of an earth-to-air horizontal heat exchanger (EAHX) system in a school complex in Imola, Italy. With more than 2 km of buried pipes, it represents one of the biggest Italian applications of this technology. Considerable differences between inlet and outlet air temperature have been noticed both in winter and in summer. Air temperature and relative humidity have been represented over a psychrometric chart while the energy performance of the system was analysed based on data of sensible heat exchange.

The test lecture rooms of KU Leuven Ghent Technology Campus are one the demonstration cases of IEA EBC Annex 62: Ventilative Cooling. This nZEB school building is realised on top of an existing university building and contains 2 large lecture rooms for maximum 80 students with a floor area of 140m² each. An all air system with balanced mechanical ventilation is installed for ventilation, heating and cooling.

Stack ventilation systems were installed in German schools constructed around 1900 and are no longer in operation. The aim of this study was to show how reactivating these systems could improve the indoor air quality in classrooms. Ventilation stacks were reactivated in three classrooms in a school while a fourth classroom, which was naturally ventilated via openable windows, served as the reference case. All classrooms were measured for carbon dioxide levels, air temperature and relative humidity.

Natural ventilation is increasingly considered a promising solution to improve thermal comfort in buildings, including schools. However in order to support its planning and implementation, quantitative analysis on airflow paths and heat-airflow building interactions are needed. This requires an adequate accounting of both internal effects, from building layout and structure, and external forcings from atmospheric factors.