English

In the last years, as fenestration and shading systems have become more complex and sophisticated, a great improvement of thermal and solar-optical performance has been required and as a consequence old methods of characterization have become inadequate. This evolution has yielded the introduction of new lumped parameters and the implementation of more sophisticated calculation models, which allow to evaluate the performance of fenestration and shading systems taking into account a large number of factors, such as the angular dependence of solar heat gain.

This paper compares the results obtained with the simplified sizing methodologies for thermal energy storage components usual in HVAC current practice and those obtained from an optimised procedure based on hourly simulations. The PC version of the building energy analysis programme DOE2.1E was used in energy simulations of a central hospital in Lisbon, as part of an energy audit. The audit enabled the simulation model to be calibrated.

A dynamic model based on physical laws and field measurements has been developed to simulate temperature, humidity and gas concentration in livestock buildings and the emission of ammonia from these buildings. The model consists of several sub models and permits to evaluate different control algorithms for heating and ventilation of livestock buildings. For each control algorithm the dynamic evolution of the resulting inside temperature and humidity are calculated together with the corresponding energy use for the specified heating and ventilation system.

Through this paper we describe the introduction of a comprehensive routine, able to take into account air changes needed for IAQ purposes, in a computer simulation code based on the explicit form of the finite difference method and devoted to the evaluation of the thermal behaviour of multizone buildings. Main characteristic of the routine is the capability of selecting and comparing different international technical standards, like those provided by the ASHRAE, the E.U. guidelines and so on.

For new design approaches the engineers of HVAC systems need tools for estimating energy requirements of different heating systems in advance. The heat losses of buildings can be classified into three fields. These are at first the losses through transmission and ventilation. Further on there are the losses which occur during heat generation (e.g. boiler heat losses). The third field contains the losses occurring at the heat distribution (e.g. pipe heat losses).

This paper presents laboratory and field test results for a new pattern recognition adaptive controller (PRAC) that adjusts the gain and integral of proportional-integral controllers while under closed loop control. The laboratory results demonstrate how PRAC tunes a static pressure control loop with aggressive and sluggish initial conditions. Field test results are presented for a static pressure control loop, supply air temperature control with a heating coil, supply air temperature control with dampers, and supply air temperature control with a cooling coil.

This paper presents a new method for monitoring the performance of control loops. The method determines performance indices using recursive relationships. The recursive formulation gives the method two desirable characteristics, namely, it is computationally efficient, and the memory requirements are small because only previous values of the performance indices are stored. Consequently, the method can be implemented in low-cost digital controllers, thereby reducing traffic on the communication network.

A field study on thermal comfort has been carried out in the capital city of Jakarta, Indonesia. There were 596 office workers working in seven multi-storey office buildings participated in this study. Predicted neutral temperatures were read from thermal comfort meter type 1212, while the subjects' thermal sensations (the actual votes) were collected by means of questionnaire.

Physiological and sensory responses, particularly paid attention to the skin wettedness under clothing at constant average skin temperature, were observed in two male subjects while they were seated on a balance. The clothing ensemble had an effective insulation of approximately 1 clo. From the analysis of the present experimental data, the following conclusions were found regarding characteristics of wettedness observed by clothed subjects at a constant average skin temperature, 1. Wettedness correlates negatively with the air temperature and correlates positively with the vapor pressure.

During the past two decades, pressure on the building industry increased gradually. Energy effi-ciency, indoor air quality, comfort, durability, sustainability all became key issues within a framework of growing cost awareness. Hence, this multiplication of issues emphasized the need for a new methodology to assess building quality, called the performance concept. This paper uses performances to evaluate an advanced building envelope system: transparent insulation (TIM).