Long before energy costs reached record levels, faculty and students in the Doctoral Program in Architecture's Building + Environmental Technology (BET) specialization were examining ways to reduce the energy consumption of building ventilation systems through a combination of state-of-the-art design tools, modern materials, and new techniques with ancient architectural understanding of airflow and heat transfer.

This intersection of new tech with old wisdom has helped the research team create healthy, energy efficient breathing solutions for buildings. The following case studies about how buildings breathe demonstrate the team's application of their research to real-world problems.

Measure Many Times, Build Once: TCAUP Contributes to New Biological Science Research Building

A model of airflow distribution through the atrium of the UM Biological Science Research Building.

"If you don't take time to study the envelope design of a building before it's built, it's very possible you will create an office where you'll be roasted in summer and frozen in winter" says Assistant Professor of Architecture Mojtaba Navvab. Fortunately, Polshek Architects, the New York architecture and engineering firm tasked with building UM's new Biological Science Research Building (BSRB) have done their best to avoid such conditions by working with the TCAUP BET research team long before the project broke ground.

The team studied energy bills, predicted average temperature for particular spaces with high fluctuations, and employed new techniques and tools such as eQuest, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) / CFX, 3D-Dye, particle image velocimetry (PIV), and laser-induced fluorescent (LIF) to simulate airflow in the proposed building design. To significantly improve the total building environmental performance in terms of energy reduction, the architecture and engineering firm's design team employed a double skin façade (DSF) for the office spaces facing south. The research team's tools provided an easy way to compute comfort as well as visualize the airflow pattern within the complex geometry of the building and the performance potential of the DSF well before it left the design stage. The resulting data showed the air velocity and heat transfer through the DSF to contribute to energy efficient operation of the office space zone and reduction of the heat storage within the building's atrium space.

"We were able to confirm that the DSF would shield occupants from high summer heat and insulate against heat loss in winter through its clear-glazed fenestration system. It acts like a chimney," said Navvab, "allowing the air to flow freely within the DSF void. It also provides sound insulation from the campus traffic noise below."

The UM Biological Science Research Building is slated to be complete in February 2006.

Displacement Ventilation Provides Fresh Air for 3,500 in UM's Hill Auditorium

"After years of waiting, this historic building located on UM's central campus now uses an efficient displacement ventilation system to deliver the cooled air from below through the inlets under each seat" says Associate Professor of Architecture Mojtaba Navvab. "Cooled air is forced very slowly through the grills under the seats into the auditorium. The slow airflow creates an equalized cool blanket of air along the floor that is conducted up the bodies of the seated audience. As the air interacts with the audience, it transfers body heat and carries it slowly upward toward specially designed vents in the ceiling. This new system has three distinct advantages.

1. Air quality is greatly improved because it removes both particulates and warmed air from the hall.
2. Energy use and cooling time is reduced as compared to traditional overhead air distribution systems.
3. Humidity, which may affect the sound absorption at various frequencies, is more easily controlled.
Albert Khan Associate completed the renovation of the building—including the new HVAC system—in January 2004.

Overheated Underground in Central Campus Steam Tunnels

If you've spent any time at UM, you're likely to have heard about the network of underground tunnels that criss-cross central campus. The tunnels distribute electricity, gas, and steam lines to campus buildings. But if you've ever mused that they would make a convenient way to avoid a Michigan winter between buildings, think again. According to Michael Swanson, utilities services manager with the UM Plant Department "the heat transfer from steam pipes within the tunnels and their interactions with the tunnels' concrete walls creates temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit—regardless of outdoor temperatures." In order to improve the working environment for plant maintenance team members, TCAUP's research team modeled a variety of energy scenarios for reducing the air temperature in the tunnels. The recommended solution involved spraying the pipes' outer surfaces with a 6mm layer of ceramic insulation and using sensor-controlled fans that only activate when a tunnel segment is entered. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and energy modeling studies showed the recommendations contributed to heat removal and subsequent reduction of high temperatures in the tunnels.

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