Residential building performance analysis at near extreme weather conditions in Hong Kong through a thermal-comfort-based strategy

The precise building performance assessment of residential housings in subtropical regions is usually more difficult than that for the commercial premises due to the much more complicated behavior of the occupants with regard to the change in indoor temperature.The conventional use of a fixed schedule for window opening,clothing insulation and cooling equipment operation cannot reflect the real situation when the occupants respond to the change in thermal comfort,thus affecting the appropriateness of the assessment results.To rectify the situation,a new modeling strategy in which the modification of the various operation schedules was based on the calculated thermal comfort(TC),was developed in this study.With this new TC-based strategy,the realistic building performances under different cooling provision scenarios applied to a high-rise residential building under the near extreme weather conditions were investigated and compared.It was found that sole provision of ventilation fans could not meet the zone thermal comfort by over 68%of the time,and air-conditioning was essential.The optimal use of ventilation fans for cooling could only help reduce the total cooling energy demand by less than 12%at best which could only be realistically evaluated by adopting the present strategy.Parametric studies were conducted which revealed that some design factors could offer opportunities for reducing the total cooling energy under the near extreme weather conditions.

Electric Field Calculations of Residential Houses near UHVDC Lines Using 3D Reconstruction Method

Prediction of electric field impact on residential houses is required in the design of UHVDC transmission lines.The calculation of electric field distribution on houses is a 3D problem,however,the effectiveness of some 2D calculation meth-ods has been validated by specific reduced-scale experimental models.The 2D methods are simple in operation and quick in computation compared with the 3D methods.In this paper,the deviation ranges of 2D electric field calculation results on houses are discussed.Then,a 3D electric field reconstruction method is proposed to correct the 2D results according to the size and location of the houses.The 3D electric field distribution on the houses can be obtained based on efficient 2D calculations,and a direct 3D calculation is avoided.Finally,the validity of the calculation methods is verified by the measurement results of a full-scale experimental system.

Study on the synergy between intra-urban resident＇s migration and job change in Beijing

People＇s decisions of residential mobility in housing market and decisions of job change in labor market play an essential role in the formation and dynamics of urban spatial structure. This paper investigates the relationship between residential relocation and job change and its heterogeneity using a large-scale survey of residential living satisfaction and preferences in Beijing. Several conclusions are drawn as follows： 1） People＇s decisions of residential mobility are significantly positively correlated with their decisions of job change, indicating that these two-dimensional decisions are in fact a correlated decision process rather than two independent decision processes. 2） There is heterogeneity in the correlated decisions of residential mobility and job change. More specifically, the interrelationship between the decisions of residential mobility and job change among people without Beijing hukou, renters and single-worker households is more intensive than people with Beijing hukou, homeowners and multi-worker households. In addition, there is heterogeneity in the determinants of residential relocation and job change between groups with different types of housing tenure, household registration status and family employment structure. 3） For renters, commuting time can significantly increase the probability of residential relocation, which indicates that residents of different socioeconomic attributes have very different responses to commuting time costs.