Quantifying the Human Induced Ventilation of Buildings

As we increase the air tightness of our buildings in line with more stringent building regulations it is vital to specify adequate fresh air ingress to all occupied spaces to ensure the health and well-being of occupants. In order to optimise buildings for energy and health it is important that we have a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of indoor air flow, which is complicated by the impact of human behaviour. Current knowledge of how humans interact with their environment and implications for the airflow within buildings is virtually non-existent. This proposal aims to develop facilities for investigating the detailed fluctuations of air movement due to occupants opening and moving through doorways. This will have a significant impact on the understanding of contaminant transport and fresh air ingress into buildings; it will also have implications for ventilation specification and simulation as well as building energy prediction.

There is growing evidence that we may require greater levels of fresh air in our buildings to avoid 'Sick Building Syndrome'. Considering the amount of time we spend within buildings in the western world it is imperative that our indoor environments are designed to maintain high air quality and comfort, to ensure health, well-being and productivity. However, this is at odds with the need to radically reduce the energy consumption of our buildings and in order to achieve these two apparently conflicting goals it is important that we develop more in-depth understanding of our buildings and create design tools that represent realistic environments, particularly incorporating the influence of human occupants. This research will provide evidence and develop methods of taking occupants into account.
The main long term impact of this research is to inform engineering design and building regulation and to have a direct impact on the UK's ability to reach its carbon reduction target whilst maintaining and improving the health and wellbeing of the population. This will be achieved through gathering evidence, developing tools and disseminating this to relevant audiences. Regulations on pollutant emission and dilution in indoor environments are likely to develop in the light of the recent World Health Organisation guidelines for Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). Therefore a fuller understanding of the indoor environment will become increasingly important to clients and building designers. This proposal represents a significant step in tackling the gap in knowledge and tools to answer fundamental questions about IAQ. In the short term the research will develop tools for incorporating the effect of human movement in the design of buildings, raise awareness of the importance of IAQ in building design and train new researchers in this area.