English

This article introduces two system models to simulate the energy performance of the temperature and humidity independent control air-conditioning system (THICS) and the conventional air-conditioning system (CAS). The energy performance comparison includes three parts of cooling resource, transportation system and terminal devices. A typical office building with these two different systems is numerically analyzed. Beijing and Guangzhou, two major cities in China, are chosen, which lay in temperate zone and tropical zone respectively.

Evaporative cooling is able to generate the cooling medium at a temperature approaching to the ambient wet bulb temperature. In this paper, a low-energy air conditioning strategy is proposed, which is a combination of cooled ceiling (CC), microencapsulated phase change material (MPCM) slurry storage and evaporative cooling technologies.

The modelling and prediction of human thermoregulatory responses and comfort have gone a long way during the past decades. Sophisticated and detailed human models, i.e. the active multi-nodal thermal models with physiological regulatory responses, have been developed and widely adopted in both research and industrial practice. The recent trend is to integrate human models with environmental models in order to provide more insight into the thermal comfort issues, especially in the non-homogeneous and transient conditions.

The noise generated by the crowds and organized fans during sporting events has created a challenge for sport facility management. The new demand for full compliance to National Football League rules on crowd noise, and cities' regulations on noise ordinance require new methods or approaches in measuring such environmental conditions. Given their dynamic range and possible classification, noise levels generated by large crowds have influenced the outcome of games, and recent analysis of the available data shows an increase in noise related penalties.

Control of daylight level using slatted blinds is an effective means of energy saving. But proper judgment on the presence of direct sunlight is indispensable. Lack of a function to disable blind controls in non-existence of direct sunlight may cause dissatisfaction about the view through windows among users of building. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of setting threshold values based on daylight conditions so that automatic controls are disabled and slats are horizontalized when direct sunlight is non-existence. 

In this paper, indoor thermal environment of the Terminal 1 of Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport (CSIA) is taken as study object, by means of investigating, measuring and simulating based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes. A total of 569 participants provided 569 sets of physical data and subjective questionnaires, and an indoor thermal comfort meter was used to collect the measured parameters of the indoor environment and the predicted mean vote (PMV). The accepted thermal comfort environment range is obtained.

A detailed model of the Net Zero Energy Town House in Toronto is developed in TRNSYS. The incorporation of thermal mass into the building envelope has been demonstrated to contribute to the enhancement of occupant comfort through the reduction of indoor temperature fluctuations. It has also been shown to cause a decrease in the overall energy consumption associated with the heating and cooling of buildings. The incorporation of a variety of thermal mass such as a concrete slabs and phase change materials (PCM) into the building envelope is modelled.

Lack of attention to the early design process in relation to Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has lead to an unsustainable built environment. Often building auditing/monitoring utilising EIA and Life Cycle Cost Assessment (LCCA) tools are used after the completion of the project, when it is too late to influence the design, materials or components to be used. A sub-processes focusing on environmental issues at early design process based on the UK construction process guideline- Royal Institute of British Architect (RIBA) work stages has been developed.

This paper describes the development, demonstration and validation of an award-winning, domestic energy, carbon-counting and carbon-reduction model (DECoRuM) with the capability of measuring, modelling and mapping energy-related CO2 emissions from existing UK dwellings and aggregating them on a local scale. This enables DECoRuM to assess the cost-benefits of deploying a wide range of best practice energy efficiency measures, low carbon technologies and solar energy systems. The capabilities of DECoRuM are demonstrated by applying it to a case study in Oxford, covering 318 dwellings.

The driving force of the thermal regulations revision in the European Union (EU) was the European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive – EPBD (European Commission, 2003).