English

The main purpose of buildings is to provide a comfortable living environment for their occupants. This includes, among others, thermal, visual and acoustic comfort as well as indoor air quality. Except during the fifties and sixties, it has always been considered important that an excess use of energy should be avoided in the construction and the management of a building, sometimes even at the cost of user comfort. Energy saving is however not the main purpose of the building.

During a field study of the thermal comfort of workers in natural ventilated office buildings in Oxford and Aberdeen, UK, we.re carried out which included information about use of building controls. The data was analysed to explore the effect the outdoor temperature has on the indoor temperature and how this is effected by occupants' use of environmental controls during the peak summer (June, July and August).

This paper describes the methodology used in the Design and Evaluation Group in the project OFFICE - Passive Retrofitting of Office Buildings to Improve their Energy Performance and Indoor Working Conditions' funded by the European Commission under the JOULE III Programme. The objectives of the OFFICE project are to promote passive solar and energy efficient retrofitting measures in office buildings.

This paper presents an analysis of the emission of chemical compounds and their diffusion in a room by the technique of computational fluid dynamics. A polypropylene styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) plate was chosen as the TVOC emission source. The emission rate and room-averaged concentration are analyzed under various conditions of ventilation rate and temperature. Further, the concentration distribution of TVOC within a room is also examined and evaluated from the viewpoint of ventilation efficiency.

The aim of the research was to find out the indoor climate conditions in Finnish commercial kitchens by measurements and inquiries. Twelve kitchens were selected from the Helsinki metropolitan area. The measurements concentrated on thermal conditions. On the average thermal conditions in measured kitchens are not fully satisfactory and they varied considerably between the kitchens. Thermal conditions within kitchens varied also depending on the workplace. Heat stress harmful to health was only found in two kitchens.

This study utilizes the two-chamber model to simulate naturally ventilated airflow through a window opening in a common- type bedroom in Taiwan. Standard kepsilon turbulence model is implemented to account for such a natural convection flow pattern. The driving force in this space is mainly the heat flux generated by occupant's skin. The result shows that under normal operation indoor, carbon dioxide ( indicator air contaminant for IAQ ) is less than 1000 ppm, ASHRAE Standard recommended.

The development of new highly sensitive detection techniques for particle bound polycyclic aromatic compounds (PP AH) on the nano-particles of traffic born soot open a new dimension for real time measuring techniques for air exchange rates in buildings in operation. The principles and first measurements are presented and demonstrate the principal applicability of this method.

Recommendations for the characteristics of anemometers that will ensure accurate velocity measurements are specified in the present standards. Recent research shows, however, that the requirements in the standards are based on incorrect assumptions and are insufficient to perform draught discomfort assessment that meets the accuracy requirements for human comfort specified in the indoor climate standards.

Airflow through houses from onshore coastal breezes in warm humid tropical climates is the principal passive means of achieving indoor thermal comfort when air temperatures exceed 30°C and relative humidity exceeds 60%. Estimates of indoor natural ventilation cooling potential have been based on indoor wind speed coefficients determined from boundary layer wind tunnel tests combined with wind frequency, air temperature and relative humidity data.