English

The concern to achieve energy efficient performance during the activation of natural ventilation mode inside an office building in New Delhi, India addresses the need of study. This paper is based on a MA research project and describes the relationship observed in coordinating thermal performance and illuminance levels achieved with different depths and designs of shading devices.

The present paper shows an example for an integrated design process combining the design work of the architect, the use of simulation tools and applied research on new combinations of materials, with the aim of the energetic optimization of an architectonical project. This integrated design approach is promoted and applied by CISol- Centre for Solar Research at the School of Architecture ETSAV as a method for a sustainable building design.

This study examines the thermal behavior of an underground space via the analysis of ancient underground dwellings and computer simulation. The analysis of the cave dwellings was done to observe their thermal performance so as to validate the hypothesis of thermal stability due to the great mass of the surrounding soil. The computer simulation was performed to model the situation of a museum which differs from a cave dwelling.

Recent work has been undertaken to determine the most effective passive cooling strategies to be adopted in the refurbishment of large numbers of traditional adobe dwellings in Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia. To do this, thermal simulation was used to first determine the sensitivity of each building to different design parameters and then assess the potential effectiveness of a range of different passive cooling strategies. In virtually all aspects of simulation no single algorithm or methodology is perfectly suited to every modelling condition.

Thermal comfort studies have been developed all around the world by many authors and some adaptive comfort models have been proved specifically for warm climates. An educational software developed some years ago for temperate climate, ACT (Program for the Evaluation of Thermal Comfort), by Isalgu and Serra, has been proved and used successfully by students in the Mediterranean climate of Barcelona, since 1992. This software uses an empirical model, based on Fangers PMV.

Heating, cooling and domestic hot water in buildings have high energy demands and they are associated with direct and indirect environmental problems through pollutant emissions. A dramatic increase of the installed air conditioning systems in buildings is observed during the last years. The dominant practice is that air conditioning applications rely exclusively on electrical energy while the exploitation of solar energy is mainly for domestic hot water, with few applications on space heating and very limited on space cooling.

While most existing EU National regulations only prescribe requirements for reducing heating needs, the new EU Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings (EPBD) requires them to be updated to also account for cooling needs. In particular, the EPBD stresses the need to effectively promote the use of passive cooling measures.

A desiccant cooling unit powered by 14.8 m2 of solar liquid collectors is implemented in a training room in Chambery in Eastern France. The system uses a Lithium Chloride sorption wheel and is optimized to work without an auxiliary heat regeneration source. Several parameters are studied in order to decrease primary energy consumption and increase system performance. The models are implemented in an object-oriented simulation environment called SPARK which allows system coupling with building models.

Research studies of thermal comfort in buildings aim mostly at maintaining air temperature, especially during summer period, within the acceptable comfort conditions and with the minimum energy consumption. The contribution of wind is known to be an important parameter for natural ventilation and passive cooling of buildings. In the present work the correlation between the variation of wind and air temperature is studied for two different meteorological stations in major Athens area, where the heat island effect exists.

This paper deals with the applicability of passive and low energy cooling technologies in the Czech Republic. The work includes climate analysis as well as buildings and systems analysis in order to estimate the potential of passive and low energy cooling technologies. The latter is based on case studies, which include both building simulation and monitoring. The role of computer simulation in low energy building design and optimization is briefly discussed.