Current fire resistance rating system is suited for modern industrial products. However, it is not feasible for traditional craftsmanship as adobe wall, either practically or economically, to test in the full scale all assemblies with a variety of thickness, materials and techniques, while making quantitative measurements of their responses. This research takes a more pragmatic approach, which is the use of semi-empirical models capable of accurately predicting the response of adobe walls to a wide range of construction conditions. These models have drawn upon reduced-scale tests to yield the predicted response.

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This is a study on identifying three indicators to evaluate the following senses of physical oppression and of openness in urban spaces-configuration factors, solid angles, and space quantity. These senses of physical oppression and openness were evaluated by students of architecture for images of 3DCG modeling streets in the Sangenjaya area of Tokyo's Setagaya ward. Heights of special buildings on 3DCG modeling images are changed and fixed images toward the special buildings and moving images showing the whole a street were evaluated. The images were analyzed using the relationship between the three indicators and the senses of physical oppression and of openness influenced by changes of buildings' height. The results show that first, three indicators show high correlation for evaluating those senses of physical oppression and of openness for both fixed and moving images. Second, as the spaces evaluated expand from part to whole, the correlation of solid angle are higher than the correlation of configuration factor and the result shows that solid angles connotes the concept of space quantity. Therefore, the solid angle is suggested as the most reasonable indicator for evaluating the senses of physical oppression and of openness in urban spaces.

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There are many sound sources, for example trains, passenger and so on, and reflective materials are often used in large stations. So, many stations are noisy and reflective. To obtain the basic data for acoustical design in station, we measured sound level during operation and reverberation time and a distribution of sound pressure level at midnight without noise source in some stations. Next, we compared the results of these measurements and calculated value under diffuse sound field condition and used ray tracing method and so on. Finally, the relation between sound level and subjective evaluation was obtained by questionnaire survey.

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Maximum intake of skylight into building interior contributes in saving energy while direct sunlight may cause an increase in air-conditioning load. An automated blind control system is required to judge the daylight condition accurately so that the blind slats are opened when direct sunlight would not enter the building interior. The purpose of this paper is to develop a method of weather judgment using luminance distribution of the sky image taken by a CCD camera system.
A threshold value which decides whether the blinds are necessary or not was determined by using sun tracking system and celestial luminance distribution. In addition, a characteristic difference was observed in luminance of the sun path every hour between clear and cloudy days. The luminance distribution on the sun path may enable continuous prediction of skylight condition

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The purpose of this study is to propose a new thermal index applicable to outdoor and non-uniform environment. The value indicating universal effect in this index consists of the summation of air temperature and the effective temperature differences by air velocity, longwave radiation, solar radiation, heat conduction, and humidity. Each of the separate effects of environmental variables on universal feelings can be divided into any human body segments as for the non-uniform thermal environment. These effects on segments are all indicated in the unit of °C. Based on the human heat balance, this paper describes mathematically the theory of how universal and separate effects in the outdoor and non-uniform thermal environment are simultaneously indicated in the same unit.

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Following the authors' previous work, this paper describes a new methodology in calculating accurately the time series utility loads (energy, power, city water, hot water, etc.) for multi-dwelling system such as a whole residential building, residential block area, even a city by means of the so-called bottom-up approach. This calculation takes into account the behavioral variations of the dwelling inhabitants. The proposed method contains a procedure for cooling load calculations based on a series of Monte Carlo simulations where the HVAC on/off state and the indoor heat generation schedules are varied, time-step by time-step. A data set of time-varying inhabitant behavior schedules, with a 15 minute resolution, was integrated into the model. The established model, which is called the Total Utility Demand Prediction System (TUD-PS) was integrated to estimate multi dwellings system, where we can accurately argue various peak demands and seasonal or annual demands. By applying to a typical residential building, we highlight several advantages of TUD-PS.

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The purpose of this study is to clarify the effects of change of architectural style and open time of the openings on indoor thermal environment in the traditional vernacular house of Taketomi Island. The comparison measurement of indoor thermal environment and CFD analysis of cross ventilation performance in traditional vernacular are conducted. The following results were obtained: 1) When the traditional opening pattern (opening during the day, closing during the night) were reproduced in old Yonaguni house which leaves a traditional architectural style, SET^* in the daytime became low about 2°C as compared with the other repaired traditional vernacular. Indoor wind velocity contributed to the fall of the effective temperature most. 2) When openings are closed in old Yonaguni house at night, since the airtight performance of the sashes are low and there is also almost no internal load, SET^* also becomes low about 1-2°C at night comparing with other vernaculars. 3) According to CFD analysis, in existing traditional vernaculars, since opening area is halved with the installation of aluminium sashes or podium, PFR/Vp and kinetic energy KE are falling to about 25% and 50% respectively through all wind directions, comparing with the old Yonaguni houses. Especially, the influence by installation of aluminium sashes is larger than that of podium.

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Hybrid ventilation system executes natural ventilation while operating air-conditioning system. The number of the system appreciation has been increasing, but the change of thermal load by the operation method is not estimated precisely, which leads to less reliability in energy conservation effect. It is also important to consider indoor thermal environment when ventilation openings are located in occupied zone of the building. In this paper, slab temperature of the simulation is compared to the measured value, which shows good coincidence between simulation and measurement.The change of thermal load and indoor environment is evaluated by the simulation, and appropriate operation method is discussed.

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The authors have built a small test cabin to promote utilization of solar heat energy and have been conducting measurements of temperature, solar radiation, heat flow, electric power and so forth in the cabin. Four important elements were introduced into the cabin in order to make high energy performance and enough thermal comfort. Namely, there are highly insulated envelope, much solar direct gain, a floor heating system including PCM packages for thermal storage and air source heat pump in the cabin. The paper describes outline of specifications for the test cabin and mechanism for energy conservation in the test cabin. It also shows results of verification relating to solar radiation. Good agreement is obtained between calculation and measurement in each of the three phases of solar radiation flow. Behaviors of the floor heating system including the PCM and the heat pump will be followed in the next paper.

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In this study, the details of the existing physiological models of plant transpiration, Jarvis and Kosugi models, were reviewed and field experiments were also conducted to investigate the influence of environmental factors on the transpiration of trees, particularly roadside trees. Data were collected by measuring the environmental factors and the factors influencing stomatal transpiration. The following results were obtained: (1) The transpiration of trees during the daytime was most significantly influenced by solar radiation or photosynthetically active radiation, followed by the leaf or air temperature. (2) The influence of the relative humidity of air on the total amount of transpiration of trees during the daytime was not significant.(3) On the prediction precision of the two models on plant transpiration, Jarvis and Kosugi models were almost the same.

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This research is focused on the wind characteristics and the ventilation performance in the consecutive street canyon using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analysis. In order to achieve the CFD analysis of the consecutive street canyon, the cyclic boundary condition was set. To estimate the effects of complex of building and atmospheric stability on ventilation performance, 4 cases varying building height and arrangement and 3 cases with various atmospheric stability were conducted. In order to obtain the performance of ventilation of pedestrian space with urban street canyon, pollutants were released in the region under 7.5m high. Furthermore, ventilation rate and PFR (Purging Flow Rate) were calculated from the result of each case. Moreover, the ventilation efficiency in canyon was analyzed how ventilation performance is influenced by the form of canyon and the various atmospheric stabilities has been studied.

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It is considered the relationship between the wind path in the urban area and the momentum flux in surface boundary layer using upper weather data observed at Osaka tower and four towers that located between Osaka city and Higashi-Osaka city. Calculation methods for momentum and sensible heat flux and their transfer coefficients between near surface and upper air are explained according to the momentum and heat budget model in surface boundary layer. Momentum transfer coefficient is estimated with observation data at Osaka tower and four towers. The difference between daytime and nighttime is around two or three times. The differences by the year and between each tower are almost ignored. Because momentum and sensible heat flux in surface boundary layer is small in the case of relatively large wind velocity nearby the ground surface in the urban area, improving wind environment in the street is not generally compatible with improving the heat exchange characteristic of the urban area as the urban heat island measure.

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In this study, field surveys were conducted in a junior high school to evaluate the classroom environment on academic performance. It was estimated by a arithmetic test and a questionnaire. In addition, energy consumption for air conditioning to create the indoor quality was estimated by computer simulation. As the result of the field surveys, the academic performance tended to decline slightly at low temperature, although there wasn't a high correlation between indoor temperature and academic performance. This tendency corresponded with the late-teen students but not with the adults. As the result of the energy simulation, to raise the room temperature by one degree was a few hundred yen per one student.

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A systematical field survey applied Conjoint Analysis (CA) concerned on two specified social issues; global warming and heat island problems is conducted. We applied the so-called web-site survey to secure both quantity and quality of a series of acquired data sets. Both obtained Marginal Willing to Pay (MWTP) for the global warming and heat island issues seems plausible. Interestingly, it is observed an evident tendency that younger subjects incline to pay more than older subjects, which implies younger people paying much attention to the environmental issues. We found that the level range of payment in a questionnaire significantly affects MWTP, which means how design a payment range would bring considerable bias in some cases. Also a principle problem whether a subject's payment was questioned by explicit as a form of additional payment to the public or implicit as a form of re-allocation of already-collected tax from the people, is observed significantly influential in the MWTP. The result also suggests that three-choice type CA seems better than pairwise type CA to obtain plausible MWTP when a questionnaire relates to a certain ideal issue that is difficult for subjects to understand its trade-off structure in proper way.

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