English

In the current era, sensors in buildings have become an essential requirement for wide applications such as monitoring indoor air quality (IAQ), thermal and environmental conditions, controlling building heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems (HVAC). To accurately control the IAQ for all areas in the indoor space, it is necessary to obtain considerable data from different locations in the space for more precision.

Indoor air quality (IAQ) is influenced by several parameters and the sources of indoor air pollutants are numerous (building materials, occupant behavior, HVAC systems, Outdoor air, etc.). Utilization of low-cost sensor devices for screening the indoor air pollution has notably drawn interest over the recent years. These systems are easy to access, portable, need low maintenance, and can provide real-time and continuous screening of target contaminants.

Many recent studies have been reported that the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) can spread through an airborne transmission route. Although ventilation is generally adopted to control viral infection through airborne transmission, a high ventilation rate will increase the energy consumption of air conditioning. Under such condition, the portable HEPA-filter air purifier might be an effective supplementary measure. However, past discussions on its efficacy in reducing indoor infection risks are limited.

Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) inactivates viral aerosols in indoor environments. Upper room UVGI systems use wall or ceiling mounted fixtures to create a disinfection zone above the occupied zone. The performance of upper room UVGI systems varies with indoor airflow induced by mechanical ventilation and thermal plumes from occupants, which carries contaminated air into the disinfection zone where viral aerosols are partially inactivated before circulating back into the breathing zone.

Powerhouse Telemark is a low carbon plus energy project in Porsgrunn, Norway. The building is currently in a commissioning phase, but with most of the building under normal operation. The heating and cooling of the building is primarily done by a low temperature radiant floor heating system which is reversed in summer and used for high temperature cooling. The low temperature heating is provided by a geothermal heat pump and the high temperature cooling is provided by free cooling from the energy wells.

Our planet is rapidly urbanizing, leading to significant biodiversity loss. In architecture and urban planning, public and private developers are beginning to integrate vegetation into built environments such as green roofs, urban farms, and bioremediation systems, in some cases designed as novel additions to mechanical systems. In indoor environments, investigations into active biofilters for improving Indoor Air Quality have been investigated for several decades.

Air leakage in a rotary heat recovery device in air handling unit (AHU) was studied by a laboratory experiment. The experiment tested a commercial AHU with rotary heat recovery and equipped with various leakage control techniques, e.g. Automatic Leakage Control (ALCTM), rotor speed control (RSC) and purge sector, etc. In the test, exhaust air transfer ratio (EATR ) of the AHU was measured by tracer gas method at two levels of airflow rates in both constant airflow and constant pressure operation modes of the test AHU.

Trends in home heating and cooling in the US are resulting in less mixing of air within dwellings, either due to not using central forced air systems, or to reduced loads and runtimes in high performance homes. This study examined the use of zoned ventilation systems using a coupled CONTAM/EnergyPlus model of new California dwellings, including a 1-story single-family dwelling and a single apartment unit. Zoned and unzoned ventilation systems were simulated for exhaust, supply and balanced fan types.

Overheating has become a recurring problem in airtight and highly insulated buildings even in moderate climates. This study aims to analyze thermal comfort and thermal resilience in an office building during summer and mid-seasons by means of dynamic simulations. Thermal comfort assessment shows, this office building without improvements has a ‘good’ indoor climate for 79.6% of total occupied hours.

The ongoing covid-19 pandemic has drawn the attention on the importance of providing adequate fresh air to the occupants of the built environment, in particular in educational buildings. Higher ventilation rates and personal protection devices like facial masks are among the strategies and procedures to reduce the infection risk, allowing the fruition of school spaces despite the epidemic progression. Nevertheless, the problem of airborne transmission has been usually dealt with considering each environment alone and assuming steady state conditions.