Showing papers in "Building and Environment in 2001"

TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the process of materials selection, design and construction used for a series of small residential buildings in Southern France and provide guidance for a more generalised adoption of the design process.

TL;DR: The Berkeley comfort model as mentioned in this paper is based on the Stolwijk model of human thermal regulation but includes several signi/cant improvements, such as allowing an unlimited body segments.

TL;DR: In this article, the most common building energy analysis techniques and the potential applications of computer technology in the energy simulation and optimization of buildings are reviewed and compared with manual energy analysis methods for approximate energy use estimates.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compared the heating consumption of the buildings with their shape and found that the energetic consumption is inversely proportional to the compactness (weak shape coefficient) in case of cold severe and scarcely sunny winters.

TL;DR: In this paper, a stainless steel environment chamber was used to characterize the emissions rate of pollutants from fax machines, laser printers, ink-jet printers, scanners, and photocopying machines, and the concentration of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), total VOC, ozone, respirable particles (PM10) and temperature were measured.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors derived analytical solutions for calculating natural ventilation flow rates and air temperatures in a single-zone building with two openings when no thermal mass is present and the independent variables are the heat source strength and wind speed, rather than given indoor air temperatures.

TL;DR: In this paper, a series of laboratory measurements that is performed on two different window types to determine the characteristics of the air flow in rooms is presented, which can be described by traditional theory for jets and stratified flow and semi-empirical flow element models are developed for estimation of thermal comfort parameters.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the current assumptions in occupants use of blinds and the impact these assumptions have on a building's environment and compare the assumed use with the actual use from monitored data of blind use in both summer and winter conditions in three buildings.

TL;DR: In this paper, a numerical approach for simulating volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from dry materials is presented, which is used to examine the VOC emissions from two particleboards.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the current assumptions in occupants use of blinds and the impact these assumptions have on a building's environment and compare the assumed use with the actual use from monitored data of blind use in both summer and winter conditions in three buildings.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a building performance assessment methodology and tool that is intended to assist the design process based on a multi-criteria decision-making approach where the performance of the building is always compared to a reference building.

TL;DR: In this paper, the difference in the air quality that is perceived by the occupants (breathing zone) and that existing in the occupied zone as a whole was investigated in an environmental chamber with displacement ventilation system.

TL;DR: In this paper, the advantages of developing a client advisory decision support system for advising clients on contractor prequalification are discussed, on the basis of the perceived needs and potential knowledge bases that may be tapped for this purpose.

TL;DR: In this article, a knowledge-based decision support system for building projects and professionals has been proposed, which harnesses lessons learnt from past and present research and practice to help optimise such decisions.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the ventilation efficiency of different ventilation patterns arranged by two inlet and two outlet diffusers at different locations in order to predict airflow pattern and ventilation performance.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors determined the deposition constants for several wall textures in order to predict indoor particles concentration using regression fitting of the concentration exponential decay curves and deduced for each orientation from the Crump and Seinfeld theory.

TL;DR: In this article, the performance of a construction element: the Roof Solar Collector (RSC) with regard to maximizing the rate of induced natural ventilation, which contributes to the improvement of indoor thermal comfort of houses.

TL;DR: In this article, a series of bioaerosol measurements have been conducted at two typical offices in Hong Kong for both a 4-day and a weekly period, and the primary objectives of these measurements were to determine the temporal concentration profile of bio aerosol inside office environments during office hours, and determine the effects of air change rate on the concentration profile.

TL;DR: In this article, a simplified numerical model, Pressurized zonal model with airdiffuser (POMA), which is able to predict the airflow pattern and thermal distributions within a room.

TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of traffic-induced ground motions on the safety of building structures adjacent to busy roadways, on human and on normal operation of sensitive equipment housed in those buildings are discussed.

TL;DR: In this paper, the results from a field survey of thermal comfort within two types of buildings; old (traditional) and new (contemporary), in Ghadames oasis in Libya were reviewed.

TL;DR: In this article, the sky conditions are frequently classified into overcast, partly cloudy and clear using some common climatic data including cloud cover (CLD ), sunshine hour (SH ) and solar radiation.

TL;DR: In this paper, experimental studies on natural smoke filling in an atrium induced by a liquid pool fire up to 1.6 MW were carried out, and results compiled from the tests were compared with those predicted by a smoke filling model developed from plume equations; the NFPA smoke filling equation; and a model developed by Tanaka and co-workers.

TL;DR: In this article, a model-based building system control idea is presented and illustrated using a simple computational scenario pertaining to the control of the thermal environment in buildings, and a prototypical implementation of a model based lighting control strategy is reported.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that under certain conditions, multiple solutions for the flow rate exist in a natural ventilation system, induced by the non-linear interaction between buoyancy and wind forces.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss some environment-friendly building practices and the importance of considering the sustainability of the building at the design stage because decisions made here influence all downstream processes, and they conclude that although much progress on environmental improvement has been made as a result of legislation and regulations, these efforts need to be complemented with the contribution of the business sector that is compelled by financial gains in adopting environmentfriendly practices.

TL;DR: In this article, a case-study is used to demonstrate the application of the IAQ audit and evaluate its comprehensiveness and usefulness to the building owners or facility managers, and a questionnaire is completed by the staff in order to provide a subjective assessment of indoor air quality.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe laboratory experiments to determine the dependence of the "front" formation and stratication on the source momentum and buoyancy on the single source, and on the location and relative strengths of two sources from which momentum and buoys were supplied separately, and show that for a single source with a nonzero input of momentum, the rate of descent of the front is more rapid than for the case of zero source momentum, and increases with increasing momentum input.

TL;DR: In this article, a bidding strategy model for use by contractors as part of a more informed approach in selecting which contracts to bid for, and as a basis for determining the most appropriate mark-up level for various types and sizes of construction work and client types.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluated the energy costs of alternative construction techniques using an optimization framework and compared the energy consumption and resource requirements for a representative room of size 3.5 m × 3.14 m. The techniques of construction evaluated in this paper are commonly used pucca techniques and low-cost construction techniques.