English

Double-skin facade (DSF) is an architectural/ engineering solution developed from the need to increase comfort in buildings with full glazed facades. The actual concept of holistic approaches to the building energy system considers DSF as an element of an Advanced Integrated Facade. DSF were developed for colder climates and uncertainty remains on their applicability to warmer areas due to higher probability of overheating.

The target of this study is to investigate aninnovative indoor LED illumination that usesheat pipes as the heat transfer channels toconduct the released heat of the LED to theheat-sink fins on the two sides. Naturalconvection inside the flow channels within theheat-sink fins or the forced convection made bythe returned flow of HAVC system serve as theoverall heat elimination mechanism.

Natural ventilation systems in multi-familyresidential buildings should meet the needs ofreducing ventilation heat loss as well asproviding good indoor air quality. Therefore, itis important to estimate the adequate area ofnatural ventilation systems based on reasonableperformance data.

Tokyo Electric Power Company R&D Center wascompleted in September 1994. The buildingsconstructed in Phase I (hereinafter just called "thebuildings") were conferred the 35th Annual Awardsby the Society of Heating, Air-Conditioning, andSanitary Engineers of Japan (SHASE). The awardwas given to commend the 30% (approx.) energysavings attained by the adoption of the cold airdistribution system and various other techniques andtechnologies for energy conservation and operationmanagement.

It is known that there are some methods ofenergy conservation for building facilities.Energy recovery ventilator (ERV),which canrecover sensible heat and latent heat, is one ofthe solution to reduce heatinglcooling loads,which are related to the power consumption ofair conditioning systems. Manufacturesspecify the performance of ERV'seffectiveness on the specification, however,there are few measured examples on energyeffectiveness in actual conditions in mildclimate area.

Numerous studies and everyday experiencesprove the fact that even new buildings do notperform as expected. Dissatisfaction with theindoor air quality and thermal comfort iscommon and the energy performance is not onthe targeted level regardless of the newtechnologies utilized and advanced systemsinstalled. To avoid these Izinds of situationsquality assurance procedures known as BuildingCommissioning have been developed in manycountries and taken into the use especially inUSA.

Thermal mass can be used in buildings toreduce the need for and dependence onmechanical heating and cooling systems whilstmaintaining environmental comfort. Activethermal mass strategies further enhance theperformance of thermal mass throughintegration with the Heating, Ventilation andAir Conditioning (HVAC) systems. For thedesign of new buildings to include activethermal mass strategies, experience fromoperational projects and design guidelines arenormally used by engineers.

DX A/C systems are widely used insmall to medium size building and generallyrely on On-Off control as a low-cost approachto maintain only indoor dry-bulb temperature.Continuously running the supply fan in a DXA/C system has a significant influence on themoisture removal effectiveness of DX A/Csystem. During an On-Off period, the airpassing through the system's cooling coil maylead to the re-evaporation of the residualmoisture on coil's finned surface.

Tn this paper, using thc "SCTENCE vent"method for estimating the energy consumptionfor air conditioning in rcsidcntial buildings, wcevaluated the wind environment and theradiative conditions with respect to the targetbuildings in the case where the grossbuilding-to-land ratio was taken intoconsideration by altering the distance betweenindividual buildings. In addition, we examinedthe influence exerted by these parameters on theuse of air conditioning and the annual energyconsumption for air conditioning andillumination.

This paper presents the energy savings thatcould be obtained by the appropriate design ofthe building in terms of morphology, thermalinertia and glazed area. Based on an extendeddatabase of values obtained by simulations, thisparametric study gives a new approach for thearchitects or design engineers as supportguidelines in the very first stage of their projectsin finding efficiently energetic solutions.One of the analyzed parameters is the buildingshape coefficient which is defined as the ratiobetween the volume of a built form and itsexternal heating losses area.