Energy efficient natural ventilation in office buildings
Natural or mechanical ventilation is often a hot issue when designing office buildings in connection with renovation. In 1996 NatVent, a major research project, on natural ventilation in office buildings in Northern Europe, were initiated under the EU Joule programme.
Over the past years the heat loads in office buildings have been steadily rising because of increasing numbers of office machines and extensive use of glazing in new buildings as well as in renovated buildings. The aim of the project is to develop systems for natural ventilation that are able to maintain a satisfactory indoor climate in the office building of the future, without the necessity of installing traditional mechanical ventilation systems with a consequentially higher electricity consumption. The project is carried out in close cooperation between the Building Research Institute, ventilation companies, consulting engineers and architects of seven northern European countries. The project is a part of the EU JOULE-programme. The project consistes of three phases: Barriers preventing the use of natural ventilation. Performance of natural ventilation systems in buildings and the development of efficient systems and components. The Danish Building Reserach Institute (SBI) is in charge of the first phase on barriers preventing the use of natural ventilation systems and participates in the measurements on natural ventilation systems and in the development of new energy efficient natural ventilation systems for office building
The objective of the research project was i.a. to identify barriers which restrict to use of natural and simple fan-assisted ventilation sytems, and to develop new solutions. Seven Northern European countries: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, England, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland cooperated to implement the NatVent project. The British Research Establishment, BRE, was project co-ordinator. The NatVent project concentrated on countries with a cold or temperate climate where heating is required in winter and where solar shading, ventilation or cooling are required in summer in order til obtain comfortable room temperature, particularly on the warmest days. The NatVent project consists of three work packages: 1) Identifying barrieres, restricting the use of natural ventilation. 2) Measurements in naturally ventilated buildings. 3) New solutions to natural ventilation. Danish participation was concentrated on work packages 1 and 2, as SBI coordinated identification of barrieres restricting the use of natural ventilation in office building and performed measurements in three Danish office buildings with natural ventilation. Morover, SBI has jointly with another participant developed a calculation model for an easy-to-use computer program, NatVent program which is especially suitable for use in the early stages of a building project. As a new feature, the research results will be published on a CD-ROM that contains an inter-active presentation of the project and its main results as well as all reports from the Nat-Vent project including brief, accessible information about the buildings where measurements were performed. The CD-ROM contains demonstration versions of three computer programs for use when designing office buildings with natural ventilation: NaVIAQ, NiteCool and the NatVent program
Key figures
Category
Participants
| Partner | Subsidy | Auto financing |
|---|---|---|
| No entries available. | ||
Contact
Postbox 119
DK-2970 Hørsholm, Denmark
Aggerholm, Søren (seniorforsker), 42865533, sbi@sbi.dk
Øvr. Partnere: Building Research Establishment (GB); Willan Building Group (GB); Centre Scientifique et Technique de la Construction (BE); Sulzer Infra Laboratory (CH); J og W Bygg og Anlaggning AB (SE); Norwegian Building Research Institute (NO); TNO Bouw (NL); Technical University, Delft (NL)
