Inducing vents and their effect on air flow patterns, thermal comfort and air quality.

It is possible to make high wall inducing vents with low air resistance, combined with natural ventilation or a mechanical exhaust. By means of these vents draughts may be prevented and high efficiencies in fresh air and contaminant removal may be realised, the latter being determined by the position of the outlet. Existing equations related to air flow patterns and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) computer programs can be used, provided that the equations and the CFD program (Phoenics) are modified in order to get better agreement with measurements.

Air flow distribution in a naturally ventilated light weight room.

The objective of this research is to investigate air flow distribution inside a light weight test room which is single sided naturally ventilated. The ventilation rate into the room is controlled by adjusting four sets of louvres. The local outside air temperature, humidity, pressure, wind velocity and direction were measured. Inside the room the velocity and direction of the inflow air across the high and low level openings, temperature and velocity distribution at four locations and six levels across the room were recorded.

Thermal comfort simulations for different structured naturally ventilated room.

The objective of this research was to investigate thermal comfort with respect to the mass of the building inside a test room which is naturally ventilated. The room is an existing portable cabin of light mass, located at Loughborough University. The comfort parameters for different mass of the cabin were predicted. For this purpose a simulation package, is used to calculate the thermal parameters defined by Fanger. Medium and high thermal masses were added to the test room and their effects on thermal comfort were investigated.

Collective housings designated for summer comfort in Nice: a "high environmental quality" operation.

The high environmental_ quality of the buildings in the south of France requires a good control of the summer thermal comfort. For economical and ecological reasons this purpose must be reached essentially by architectural design. In the program "Haute Qualite Environnementale" of the "Plan-Construction". 58 collective housings have been built in Nice in a dense urban zone with a principal consideration to the summer comfort, specially to allow a good transversal ventilation in the moderate hot and humid climate of this city.

Summer comfort in residential buildings without mechanical cooling.

In many cases, it is possible to achieve a satisfactory comfort in summer in residential buildings with purely passive means (thermal inertia, solar protection, night ventilation). These parameters have to be taken into account at the earliest stages of building design, which requires guidance documents and simplified tools. We developed both, on the basis on a simple RC model with a particular attention paid to the impact of the outdoor noise (related to the windows opening at night).

Thermal comfort assessment in chilled ceiling and displacement ventilation environments.

The use of air-conditioning is known to be an energy-intensive solution to the problem of providing thermally comfortable conditions in buildings. This has led to the adoption of new techniques, such as displacement ventilation and chilled ceiling systems as a means for providing the cooling requirements. In addition, benefits are gained in terms of indoor air quality and comfort. However, there is a lack of information about the effect that chilled ceiling has on displacement air flow, and the corresponding implications for occupant thermal comfort.

Using air flow and comfort analysis to avoid air conditioning in Spain.

New office buildings in Spain are nearly always designed to be air conditioned. The architect Emilio Miguel Mitre Associates (EMMA) has designed a building which avoids air conditioning, thereby reducing energy demand. The design uses the principles of high thermal mass combined with night ventilation, reduction of solar gain during the summer months, high levels of insulation, evaporative cooling, and buried pipes to provide cooling when the external temperature rises above 30°C.

EC 2000 high performance buildings that reduce or avoid air conditioning.

This paper outlines progress in the THERMIE Target project Energy Comfort 2000 after three and a half years. Seven of the eight buildings are under construction and the eighth will be starting on site in May 1997. The project covers the design, construction, commissioning and monitoring of the buildings which are offices, university buildings, and public and recreational buildings, together with "horizontal activities" which link the projects together.

Adaptation of a fan coil unit to operating conditions for optimum thermal comfort.

The work discussed here concerns the conditions of comfort obtained in a room cooled by a fan coil in relation to the form of air flow obtained. It is based both on practical experiment and on numerical simulation using CFD code. Combining these methods allowed a large number of configurations to be studied, in association with different operating conditions for the appliance. Using the results in combination enabled a relation to be established between the problem data, the device characteristics and the comfort conditions obtained.

Evaluation of thermal comfort impact of direct fresh air supply in Winter. Part 2: comparison of different ways of air supply to exhaust only ventilation.

IEA Annex 27 "Evaluation and Demonstration of Domestic Ventilation Systems" has been engaged in developing the evaluation tools for various aspects of their performance. This paper describes the evaluation tool for thermal comfort impact by ventilation systems. The tool is based on the experiment by using inside artificial climate chamber, focusing upon the temperature difference and cold air supply rate into the room. As the evaluation index, the percentage of living space volume where a specified thermal comfort condition is satisfied is used.

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