English

Blower Doors are used to measure the air tightness and air leakage of building envelopes. As existing dwellings in the United States are ventilated primarily through leaks in the building shell (i.e., infiltration) rather than by whole-house mechanical ventilation systems, quantification of airtightness data is critical in order to answer the following kinds of questions: What is the Construction Quality of the Building Envelope? Where are the Air Leakage Pathways? How Tight is the Building? How Much Ventilation Does the Air Leakage Supply?

The Building Research Establishment has set up various passive stack ventilation systems (PSV) in a test house in order to assess their performance. The test house used was a two storey, end terrace dwelling on the BRE site at Garston. A PSV was installed in the kitchen of the test dwelling. The duct material, diameter and configuration were varied to determine any differences that they would make to the air flow rates obtained in the duct. In addition, three different ridge terminals were tested and three ceiling inlets.

A design guide for displacement ventilation (thermally induced ventilation ) has been prepared. It is based on quasi stationary experiments carried out in the Sulzer Infra laboratory in Winterthur. The significant design parameters identified by factorial analysis are the air flow rate, the internal load, the convective part of the internal load and to a lesser extent the room height. Using a linearized polynom representation for the temperature increase near the floor as well as for the vertical temperature gradient in the occupied zone a design nomogram has been obtained.

Some radon mitigation systems draw air with a high radon concentration from under the basement floors of houses and exhaust it outdoors. The objective of this project was to measure the reentry rates of radon released at roof level and at ground level near a house to determine whether exhaust above the roof is necessary. This was done by using a portable mockup of a radon mitigation system exhaust, with sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) as a tracer gas.

Organisations in many countries have contributed data to the AIVC to establish a unique collection of numerical data suitable for design purposes and model evaluation. By combining information from these multiple sources, it is possible to consider a far wider range of operating conditions than would be possible by using the results from a single set of measurements alone. The analysis presented in the report is in three sections covering component leakage data, whole building leakage data and wind pressure evaluation.

A fundamental objective of this report is to investigate the techniques used in the design and research fields for the evaluation of thermal and air flow simulations. The scope is restricted to the whole building rather than flow and heat transfer within individual structural elements (e.g. cavity walls). Considerable developments are taking place in the field of air flow and thermal simulation. Rather than present an in-depth study of these developments, this report concentrates on the rather more general aspects of the combined simulation.

This paper presents the estimation of air infiltration in a building using the COMIS multi-zone model. The applicability of this information in the design of buildings is demonstrated and the effect of air infiltration in the thermal performance of buildings is investigated. An integrated method incorporating both air infiltration estimation and building thermal simulation is proposed.

Swiss topography is dominated by the Alps and the Jura in the north-west part and the most densely populated "Midlands" between the two. The climatic conditions vary in a very wide range both in temperature and solar radiation due to the different altitudes and the different climatic conditions north and sourth of the Alps.Accordingly there are roughly three climatic regions. Meteo data are available as hourly values from over 70 automatic meteo stations. Derived values for hand calcualtion methods are regularly published in Swiss technical journals.

The new units of perceived air quality, the olf and the decipol, are introduced. Research using these units has been used to argue that current recommended ventilation rates are inadequate for comfort. The derivation of theunits is questioned and it is proposed that theirapplication be delayed until the methodology has been fully validated.