ventilation

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations have recommended improved ventilation to reduce the risk of indoor airborne infectious disease transmission. These recommendations include increasing outdoor air rates and filtration efficiencies, as well as verifying that ventilation systems are operating as intended. There have also been many recommendations to monitor indoor CO2 concentrations as indicators of ventilation or infection risk, in some cases with quantitative concentration limits.

During the corona-19 pandemic waves in 2020 and 2021, many cultural and recreational activities inside buildings could no longer take place to prevent virus transmission. In order to allow cultural and recreational sectors to reopen in a safe way by the summer of 2021, a ventilation task force of the corona commissioner's office of the Belgian federal government prepared recommendations for the practical implementation and monitoring of indoor air quality in the context of COVID-19.

Ninety per cent of New Zealand classrooms are naturally ventilated by opening windows. Achieving a suitable ventilation level will rely on teachers. A survey showed that less than half of the teachers opened windows during teaching time. Due to the high occupant density in classrooms and a low natural ventilation rate, it is challenging to provide adequate ventilation during the southern hemisphere winter months (June to September). From 9 am to 3 pm, school hours align well with the optimum solar radiation, providing opportunities for solar ventilation.

In order to get to scale and rapidly decarbonize the energy use of homes, we need information on the performance and costs of potential home upgrade measures. The costs for different performance levels are vital for energy savings and decarbonization program planning and to focus R&D activities on measures that could achieve significant cost reductions. This study obtained data from over 1,700 projects that aimed to achieve advanced levels of energy use and related carbon emissions reductions.

The use of natural ventilation components as an enhancement for the ventilation systems has become more desirable in the building sector. The natural ventilation systems play a crucial role in reducing the carbon footprint from space heating and cooling through applications of low carbon technology and heat recovery unit. Low carbon technologies such as windcatchers and turbine ventilators are commonly used in commercial, educational, and industrial buildings for providing thermal comfort within a building and minimising carbon emissions.

The level of airtightness is increasing in newly built Australian apartments. An appropriate ventilation rate is needed to provide occupants with a healthy environment. In 2022, a significant proposed change in the Australian National Construction Code (NCC) would require building tested as achieving less than five air changes per hour at 50Pa to have a continuous flow exhaust.

This study aims to develop and evaluate an advanced control method for acceptable indoor air quality (e.g., particulate matter and CO2) with low energy consumption in a residential space. A ventilation system, an air purifier, and a kitchen hood system are installed in the testbed to maintain a healthy IAQ. To accomplish the objective, we use a double deep Q-network (DDQN) which is one of the reinforcement learning. This study utilizes a co-simulation platform with EnergyPlus and Python.

Radon is one of the common contaminants inside buildings, with maximum presence in high potential areas classified as radon prone areas. This radioactive gas, which comes from the spontaneous disintegration of radium present in the earth's crust, can penetrate buildings and accumulate inside them. The spaces closest to the ground (basement and first floors) are the most affected. Its inhalation in high doses is associated with an increased risk of lung cancer. Several techniques are commonly used to mitigate its presence.

Schools had covered special attention in the last year, due to their importance to organize daily work as well as since most of the children were still not vaccinated. Under this circumstance, the importance of air renewal to reduce the probability of COVID-19 contagion inside buildings was highlighted. 

Throughout history, the human population has experienced major outbreaks of infectious diseases. In December 2019 the previously unknown SARS-CoV-2 virus emerged, which had a huge impact globally. Residents of long-term care facilities (LTCFs) showed to be highly susceptible to infection due to their frailty. Respiratory infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, can spread among others via the airborne transmission route. This is caused by sharing the same indoor environment.