Energy consumption,indoor environmental quality,and benchmark for office buildings in Hainan Province of China

With rapid economy growth,building energy consumption in China has been gradually increased.The energy consumption and indoor environmental quality of 51 office buildings in Hainan Province,a hot and humid area,were studied through collection of verified data in site visits and field tests.The result revealed that,electricity accounted for 99.79% of the total energy consumption,natural gas 0.17%,and diesel 0.04%.The air conditioning dominated the energy use with a share of 43.18%,equipment in the particular areas 26.90%,equipment in the office rooms 11.95%,lighting system 8.67%,general service system 7.57%,and miscellaneous items 1.73%.Statistical method including six indicators obtained the energy consumption benchmark with upper limit of 98.31 kW-h/m2 and lower limit of 55.26 kW-h/m2.According to ASHRAE standard(comfortable standard) and GB/T 18883-2002(acceptable standard),the indoor environmental quality of 51 sampled office buildings was classified into three ranks:good,normal and bad.With benchmark of building energy consumption combined with indoor environmental quality,it was found that only 3.92% of sampled buildings can be identified as the best performance buildings with low energy consumption and advanced indoor environmental quality,and the buildings classified into normal level accounted for the maximum ratio.

Indoor Environmental Requirements in Green Building in Jordan

The aim of this study is to provide stimulating and comfortable environments for the occupants and minimize the risk of green building related health problems. Researcher has developed a number of assumptions that helps to resolve the research problems, which includes the application of the indoor environmental quality and will highlight the required design standards of it to provide a healthy environment to the houses and chosen AREE （Aqaba residence energy efficiency） as a case study. The theoretical part goes through a brief study to definition of the required design standards which includes eight kinds of issues： indoor environmental quality intents, control of environmental tobacco smoke, control of chemicals contaminants, design well ventilated buildings, provide daylight/view, energy efficient lighting, thermal comfort, consider acoustics and its uses in all the elements of internal spaces. Than we going through the uses of these requirements by using descriptive analytical approach, we chose one case study （AREE）. To analyze the uses of their requirements of the indoor environmental quality and we also collect the information about this house from the owner of the AREE, then draw conclusions and list of references.

THE INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY PERFORMANCE OF GREEN LOW-INCOME SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSING

There is little empirical evidence in the literature about the indoor environmental quality performance of residential buildings in general and of social housing in particular. To address this problem, this study used a mixed-method approach to evaluate the indoor environmental quality performance of 17 green low-income single attached family houses in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada. Questionnaires were administered to occupants to assess their snapshot and long-term satisfaction with the indoor environment. In addition, snapshot measurements were carried out to evaluate the indoor environmental quality factors of thermal comfort, indoor air quality, lighting and acoustics. Occupants’ snapshot satisfaction was categorized into two groups (i.e. satisfied/comfortable or dissatisfied/uncomfortable) and compared with snapshot measurements. The results showed the measured IEQ parameters were well below recommended threshold levels. Further, occupants with higher snapshot satisfaction were generally exposed to relatively lower levels of indoor pollutants. A statistically significant difference was found in PM10 level only between the snapshot satisfied and snapshot dissatisfied groups of occupants. Apparent sound transmission classes were below the standard reference value of 50, suggesting potential problems in noise attenuation within different spaces in each apartment and between apartments. The findings of this study could help governments implement green shadowing for public-housing and also renovate existing houses using the same principles.

ASSESSMENT OF EFFECTIVE ENERGY RETROFIT STRATEGIES AND RELATED IMPACT ON INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY A case study of an elementary school in the State of Maryland

1.0.INTRODUCTION In the United States,K-12 school buildings spend more than$8 billion each year on energy-more than they spend on computers and textbooks combined[1].Most occupied older buildings demonstrate poor operational performance-for instance,more than 30 percent of schools were built before 1960,and 53 percent of public schools need to spend money on repairs,renovations,and modernization to ensure that the schools’onsite buildings are in good overall condition.And among public schools with permanent buildings,the environmental factors in the permanent buildings have been rated as unsatisfactory or very unsatisfactory in 5 to 17 percent of them[2].Indoor environment quality(IEQ)is one of the core issues addressed in the majority of sustainable building certification and design guidelines.Children spend a significant amount of time indoors in a school environment.And poor IEA can lead to sickness and absenteeism from school and eventually cause a decrease in student performance[3].Different building types and their IEQ characteristics can be partly attributed to building age and construction materials.[4]Improving the energy performance of school buildings could result in the direct benefit of reduced utility costs and improving the indoor quality could improve the students’learning environment.Research also suggests that aging school facilities and inefficient equipment have a detrimental effect on academic performance that can be reversed when schools are upgraded.[5]Several studies have linked better lighting,thermal comfort,and air quality to higher test scores.[6,7,8]Another benefit of improving the energy efficiency of education buildings is the potential increase in market value through recognition of green building practice and labeling,such as that of a LEED or net zero energy building.In addition,because of their educational function,high-performance or energy-efficient buildings are particularly valuable for institution clients and local government.More and more high-performance buildings,net zero energy buildings,and positive energy buildings serve as living laboratories for educational purposes.Currently,educational/institutional buildings represent the largest portion of NZE(net zero energy)projects.Educational buildings comprise 36 percent of net zero buildings according to a 2014 National New Building Institute report.Of the 58 net zero energy educational buildings,32 are used for kindergarten through grade 12(K-12),21 for higher education,and 5 for general education.[9]Finally,because educational buildings account for the third largest amount of building floor space in the United States,super energy-efficient educational buildings could provide other societal and economic benefits beyond the direct energy cost savings for three reasons:1)educational buildings offer high visibility that can influence community members and the next generation of citizens,2)success stories of the use of public funds that returns lower operating costs and healthier student learning environments provide documentation that can be used by others,and 3)this sector offers national and regional forums and associations to facilitate the transfer of best design and operational practices.

AN EVALUATION OF INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY AND OCCUPANT WELL-BEING IN MANITOBA SCHOOL BUILDINGS

This exploratory research aims to evaluate indoor environmental quality in the classrooms of three school buildings in Southern Manitoba,Canada,and to evaluate the well-being of these schools’teachers as it pertains to their perception of their classrooms’indoor environment.The schools include a middle-aged,conventional school;a new,non-green school;and a new,green school certified using the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system.The methodology involved using a mobile instrument cart to conduct snapshot measurements of thermal comfort,indoor air quality,lighting and acoustics in classrooms and an occupant survey to evaluate teachers’long-term satisfaction with their classrooms’indoor environmental quality.The results showed that the new,green and new,non-green schools’classrooms performed better than the conventional,middle-aged school’s classrooms with respect to some aspects of thermal comfort and indoor air quality only.Teachers in the new,green school and in the new,non-green school were more satisfied than teachers in the conventional,middle-aged school with their classrooms’overall indoor environmental quality,lighting quality and indoor air quality.Surprisingly,the new,green and new-non green school classrooms’performance were very comparable with the new,green school’s classrooms performing statistically significantly better with respect to relative humidity.Similarly,none of the differences in teachers’satisfaction ratings between the new,green and new,non-green school were statistically significant.

Machine Learning and Deep Learning Methods for Enhancing Building Energy Efficiency and Indoor Environmental Quality – A Review

The built environment sector is responsible for almost one-third of the world’s final energy consumption. Hence, seeking plausible solutions to minimise building energy demands and mitigate adverse environmental impacts is necessary. Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques such as machine and deep learning have been increasingly and successfully applied to develop solutions for the built environment. This review provided a critical summary of the existing literature on the machine and deep learning methods for the built environment over the past decade, with special reference to holistic approaches. Different AI-based techniques employed to resolve interconnected problems related to heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and enhance building performances were reviewed, including energy forecasting and management, indoor air quality and occupancy comfort/satisfaction prediction, occupancy detection and recognition, and fault detection and diagnosis. The present study explored existing AI-based techniques focusing on the framework, methodology, and performance. The literature highlighted that selecting the most suitable machine learning and deep learning model for solving a problem could be challenging. The recent explosive growth experienced by the research area has led to hundreds of machine learning algorithms being applied to building performance-related studies. The literature showed that existing research studies considered a wide range of scope/scales (from an HVAC component to urban areas) and time scales (minute to year). This makes it difficult to find an optimal algorithm for a specific task or case. The studies also employed a wide range of evaluation metrics, adding to the challenge. Further developments and more specific guidelines are required for the built environment field to encourage best practices in evaluating and selecting models. The literature also showed that while machine and deep learning had been successfully applied in building energy efficiency research, most of the studies are still at the experimental or testing stage, and there are limited studies which implemented machine and deep learning strategies in actual buildings and conducted the post-occupancy evaluation.

Indoor environmental quality(IEQ)assessment of Nigerian university libraries:A pilot study

An indoor environmental quality(IEQ)assessment of academic libraries in Nigeria was conducted through ob-jective measurements.The selected university libraries were Abubakar Gimba Library;Awwal Ibrahim Library;and Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida Library Complex.The libraries were evaluated under operating conditions and during their peak usage periods.Measurements of the main descriptors of good IEQ,including the acoustical,visual,and thermal comfort conditions were performed using portable IEQ meters.The methodology employed for the assessment of these IEQ descriptors followed prescriptions of international standards ASHRAE standard 55 and ISO 7730.To determine the time of the day in which the library buildings can achieve optimum IEQ,measurements were taken in the morning and afternoon.The results obtained were compared with reference values found in the international Standard CIBSE Guide A for adequate IEQ compliance of academic libraries.The findings of this study are expected to help in improving the IEQ of academic libraries in Nigeria and other parts of the world.

Application of statistical analysis of sample size:How many occupant responses are required for an indoor environmental quality(IEQ)field study

Determining required sample size is one of the critical pathways to reproducible,reliable and robust results in human-related studies.This paper aims to answer a fundamental but often overlooked question:what sample size is required in surveys of occupant responses to indoor environmental quality(IEQ).The statistical models are introduced in order to promote determining required sample size for various types of data analysis methods commonly used in IEQ field studies.The Monte Carlo simulations are performed to verify the statistical methods and to illustrate the impact of sample size on the study accuracy and reliability.Several examples are presented to illustrate how to determine the value of the parameters in the statistical models based on previous similar research or existing databases.The required sample size including“worst”and“optimal”cases in each condition is obtained by this method and references.It is indicated that 385 is a“worst case”sample size to be adequate for a subgroup analysis,while if the researcher has an estimate of the study design and outcome,the“optimal case”sample size can potentially be reduced.When the required sample size is not achievable,the uncertainty in the result can properly interpret via a confidence interval.It is hoped that this paper would fill in the gap between statistical analysis of sample size and IEQ field research,and it can provide a useful reference for researchers when planning their own studies.

Impact of cold indoor thermal environmental conditions on human thermal response

To explore the thermal responses under the non-thermal equilibrium cold environmental conditions,a laboratory study was conducted in climate chamber.The local skin temperatures and thermal sensation of 20 subjects were recorded at 10 min intervals for 90 min under air temperatures of 7.4,9.1,11 and 15 °C.The results show that both local skin temperatures and mean skin temperature decrease not only with the drop of ambient air temperature but also with the exposure time.Local thermal sensation and overall the thermal sensation have the similar temperature-varying and time-varying characteristics.Predicted mean vote(PMV) model cannot correctly predict the thermal sensation under non-thermal equilibrium cold environment.The correlation between local thermal sensation and local skin temperatures shows that thermal sensation is closely related to skin temperature.Skin temperature is an effective indicator of thermal sensation.A linear relationship model between overall thermal sensation and mean skin temperature,considering both ambient temperature and exposure time,was established in the non-thermal equilibrium cold environment,which makes the evaluation of thermal sensation more objective.

Influence of patio on indoor environment in a Chinese traditional folk house in summer

A case study is performed on the influence of the patio on the indoor environment of a traditional folk house group,named Zhangguying village in Hunan province,in the summer of 2007.Measurements include indoor and outdoor air temperature,indoor and outdoor illuminance,indoor and outdoor air speed,and carried out from August 5th to 10th.The results show that the patio,acting as a ＂buffer zone＂,can reduce the ambient impacts on the indoor thermal environment of rooms because the temperature of the patio is lower than that of the outdoor temperature but higher than that of the rooms.The patio can improve the indoor lighting environment because the illuminance of the patio is lower than that of outdoor and higher than that of the rooms.But the effect is too limited,because the illuminance of the rooms is lower than the national standards.This study shows that the shading design is the primary consideration in this kind of climate.The wind speed of the patio is stable and similar to that of the hall and the stack effect of the patio is not obvious.It shows that the patio is useful for natural ventilation,caused by wind pressure,in summer.

On Ecological Design of Indoor Environment Based on Energy-conservation and Gas Emission-reduction

With the rapid development of economy, requirements on indoor environment design are getting higher and higher, but its prosperity brings ecological environment serious destruction and over consumption of resources. Under the global environment of the sustainable development, the principles of indoor environment design were analyzed ecologically and corresponding implementation methods were proposed to provide reference for energy-conservation and gas emission-reduction in the ecological system of indoor environment.

Analysis and numerical simulation of indoor thermal environments in some university classrooms

In order to study the indoor thermal environments in university classrooms in Tianjin,a field study and a questionnaire survey for a main teaching building are carried out.First,the thermal sensations of participants in the typical classrooms are studied by 180 questionnaires.Then,based on the measured data,the temperature changes in the classrooms during a year are simulated by the DeST software.The results show that the indoor thermal environments in the northern classrooms on the first floor are better than those in other classrooms.And the measurement results accord with the simulation results.These results can be used as a reference for the study of the indoor thermal environments in other seasons.

Indoor Environment Quality Monitoring and Evaluation System Based on LoRa Communication

Indoor environmental quality has always been the focus of people’s long-term attention. How to monitor the indoor environmental level conveniently and accurately is a problem that people pay attention to now. After research, an indoor environment level monitoring system based on LoRa communication is designed. The system is mainly divided into two parts, the detection node, and the monitoring terminal. Temperature, humidity, light intensity, noise, formal-dehyde, and carbon dioxide are detected through the node with STM32F103ZET6 microcontroller as the controller;the data is sent to the monitoring terminal for display through LoRa communication. At the same time, the T-S fuzzy neural network (TSFNN) is improved by the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to classify the indoor environment quality level. Experimental test: the total error of the improved TSFNN model test set is reduced by 8.6007. The system can monitor the indoor environment level objectively and reliably, and has high practical value.

Investigating path loss characteristics of UWB signals in vacancy indoor environment based on time-domain technique

The path loss analysis model based on 5 rays in vacancy indoor environment is proposed. The relationship between multipath overlapping and the path loss is analyzed mathematically. Time-domain technique is introduced to compute reflection coefficient in a very short time interval. A 5 rays path loss calculation method, which is satisfactory accurate, is developed. 5 typical environments are involved to analyze and generalize the common path loss characteristics in vacancy indoor environment. The simulation result shows that the path loss can be characterized as 3 zones with different path loss exponent as distance between transmitter and receiver increasing.

Questionnaire Research on Indoor Environment Quality i n China

With 1 185 pi eces of questionnaire, it is found that in China, people take fresh air, odor, e tc., as well as indoor air temperature, humidity, as the most important indoor a ir parameters. It is also found that there is a significant sensitivity differen ce in indoor environment between southerners and northerners in China. People fr om different regions have different demands for their working and living environ ment. Therefore, as a good design of air conditioning system, it is strongly rec ommended that the different demands of people from different regions should be t aken into consideration.

An improved Gmapping algorithm based map construction method for indoor mobile robot

With the rapid development in the service,medical,logistics and other industries,and the increasing demand for unmanned mobile devices,mobile robots with the ability of independent mapping,localization and navigation capabilities have become one of the research hotspots.An accurate map construction is a prerequisite for a mobile robot to achieve autonomous localization and navigation.However,the problems of blurring and missing the borders of obstacles and map boundaries are often faced in the Gmapping algorithm when constructing maps in complex indoor environments.In this pursuit,the present work proposes the development of an improved Gmapping algorithm based on the sparse pose adjustment(SPA)optimizations.The improved Gmapping algorithm is then applied to construct the map of a mobile robot based on single-line Lidar.Experiments show that the improved algorithm could build a more accurate and complete map,reduce the number of particles required for Gmapping,and lower the hardware requirements of the platform,thereby saving and minimizing the computing resources.

Specific Enthalpy Based Heat Stress Index for Indoor Environments without Radiation Effect

Over 100 human thermal indices have been developed to predict the combined thermal impact on the body.In principle,these indices based on energy thermal budget equations should not only be the most complex but also be the most accurate.However,the simple indices based on algebraic or statistical models[e.g.,the wet-bulb globe temperature(WBGT)]continue to be the most popular.A new heat stress index,the enthalpy dry-bulb temperature(EnD)for indoor environments is developed and validated in this study.The EnD index is unique in that it uses the air specific enthalpy,not the wet-bulb temperature,to measure the latent heat transfer from the skin to the surrounding environment.Theoretically,the EnD index can be treated as the equivalent temperature based on the convective heat transfer coefficient h_(c).Comparison is made between the EnD index and the widely used WBGT index based on the experimental data taken from three independent studies available in the scientific literature.The results show that the EnD index can reduce the overestimation of the dry-bulb air temperature and thus reduce heat stress in most cases,especially for hot and humid environments.It can be concluded that the EnD index has the potential to replace the WBGT index as the standard heat stress index in the future.

Hardware Implementation of STM32 Microcontroller-Based Indoor Environment Monitoring System

Microcontroller is widely used in the intelligent life of modern society. Intelligent development based on Microcontroller to solve the actual needs of people’s life, work, study and other fields is the core of Microcontroller application. Therefore, it is a task for researchers to understand the structure and performance of microcontroller, develop software, and be familiar with the method and process of intelligent development based on microcontroller. And with that in mind, this paper designs and produces a physical hardware system for indoor environment detection based on STM32 microcontroller. The system can detect the light intensity, temperature and humidity, and CO gas concentration in the indoor environment;and the data is integrated and processed by the STM32 microcontroller to display the current parameter values of each quantity in the indoor environment on a 3.5-inch resistive screen;at the same time, the PC can also log in to the OneNET cloud platform through the web page, and display the light intensity, temperature and humidity, and CO gas concentration values in the indoor environment in real time in the device created by OneNET for real-time viewing. The system can also display the light intensity, temperature and humidity, and CO gas concentration values in the indoor environment in real time. The hardware system has been tested and tested to achieve its function.

RESEARCH ON INDOOR ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION FIELD OF MULTIPLE ANTENNA SYSTEM

The complexity of the indoor environment brings great challenges to predict the electromagnetic radiation field of multiple antenna systems. Based on the Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) algorithm, using the mobile phone shielding device as the multiple antenna systems example, the mobile phone shielding device's indoor electromagnetic radiation field is researched by measurment method and simulation method. The effectivity of prediction method is verified by comparing the prediciton results with the measurment results. About 80% of the error can be controlled less than dB. The quantitative research has certain guiding significance to the prediction of the multiple antenna systems radio wave propagation.

Indoor thermal environment of wooden-plank wall dwellings in summer in Chongqing

There are a large number of wooden-plank wall dwellings, a kind of traditional house with regional characteristics, existing in Chongqing area. We chose a typical house in Chongqing as the subject and measured it during summer to research the situation of the indoor thermal comfort of wooden-plank wall dwellings. Based on the particularity of local residents' living habit and the characteristics of the local buildings, we analyzed the data of the field measurement and evaluated the thermal environment with APMV. The results show that the indoor thermal comfort of wooden-plank wall dwellings in summer is improved mainly by natural ventilation.