BCIT Thesis and other Required Graduate Degree Works | BCIT Institutional Repository

BCIT Thesis and other Required Graduate Degree Works

Field experiment on the effect of interior living walls on indoor environmental quality
Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) has multiple aspects such as: indoor air quality (IAQ), acoustics, thermal conditions, lighting, and ventilation. This research focuses on indoor air quality and acoustics and studies the effect of interior living walls on indoor air quality and acoustical characteristics of rooms through field monitoring and experiment. Previous laboratory studies have been carried out at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) and the University of British Columbia (UBC) on the effect of living walls on acoustics and indoor air quality. This study, examines the acoustical effect of living walls (background noise level, reverberation time, and speech articulation) as well as the effect of living walls on indoor air quality (Carbon Dioxide, Volatile Organic Compound, and endotoxin) through field measurements in the BC Hydro Theater at the Centre for Interactive Research in Sustainability (CIRS) at UBC. Existing predictive models are verified using field data, and are used to predict the effect of interior living walls on indoor air quality and acoustics in an adjoining lab., Interior living walls
A field study on quality of three First Nation homes on the Squamish Urban Reserve of West Vancouver
Three new homes in the First Nations Squamish urban reserve were instrumented, tested, and monitored for a period of one year. Performance data was obtained from these homes and analyzed to help assess their quality and improve their performance. From the field study, the houses performed reasonably well. However, there is large room for improvements. Considering construction durability, the built-in moisture in the houses dried well. However, as expected, the moisture in the attics was high and improvements are recommended. The monitoring also confirmed that north facing walls take more time to dry and remain wet in some areas, despite the fact that the monitored year was one of the driest years in record, as reported by Environment Canada. Dangerously high moisture levels were also recorded in a few wall locations, believed to be caused by construction deficiencies at window sills and wall penetrations. In general, wall orientation and obstructions to solar radiation play a major role in the moisture balance of walls. This study confirmed that north-facing walls have higher moisture content, which also takes longer to dry out. South-facing and east-facing walls have lower moisture content (i.e. due to higher solar radiation and higher wall temperature to promote evaporation). The effect of external obstructions (i.e. large trees) to solar radiation was seen in the high moisture content of the west walls that was close to that of north walls. However, as reported in this study, poor construction detailing overpowers orientation on impacting wall moisture, and is the major source of concern for rain penetration. Unfortunately, wood-frame construction is unforgiving to construction deficiencies, and maximum care must be exercised to protect all details and wall penetrations from rain. Considering the indoor environment, in general the conditions were within acceptable limits; however, indoor conditions are greatly affected by occupants’ behaviours (e.g. opening windows in cold days). Particular problems arising from tobacco smoking and wood carving could not be measured. From the field study and computer simulations, it is recommended to make the houses more airtight to improve durability, energy efficiency, and possibly indoor air quality. It is also recommended to decouple the ventilation system from the house heating system to improve its ventilation reliability., Monitoring First Nation homes, Indoor air quality and energy efficiency, CO2 contaminant dispersion models, Ventilation
Performance evaluation of active chilled beam in cooling and heating operation under actual field boundary conditions
People spend most of their time indoors and often share the same environment; therefore, knowledge and prediction of the indoor conditions are important to optimize the indoor conditions for the occupants at the building design phase. A range of parameters like air velocity, temperature and relative humidity determines the indoor climate and are important for the comfort of the occupant of a room in terms of thermal comfort and indoor air quality. Active Chilled Beam (ACB), a high-performance air distribution system has gained popularity as an energy efficient, sustainable comfort cooling technology with favourable performance in term of thermal comfort to occupants. ACB is wildly utilized in a variety of commercial buildings, schools, laboratories and hospitals. However, in-depth investigations on the performance of these systems under different boundary conditions are still inadequate., Active chilled beam, ACB under cooling, ACB under heating, CFD, Room airflow, Ventilation efficiency