Shafts are essential, and play a significant role in high-rise buildings. Nevertheless, the adverse effect of the shaft, which increases flames spread rate in high-rise buildings under the stack effect, is accompanied with fire safety. This paper focuses on obtaining the theoretical flame height and thermal environment for fires in the shaft based on experimental information. Bench-scale experiments were carried out in a large, confined space to reveal the motion of the flame in a non-combustible shaft. It shows that flame height increase is due to the increase in co-flowing. Increasing either the aspect ratio or the areas of inlet enhances the co-flowing as well as the flame height. Flame height has been theoretically derived for fires in the shaft. It is a function of the dimensionless heat release rate which is affected by the aspect ratio, areas of inlet, burner diameter, ratio of the areas of the inlet to the areas of the outlet and heat release rate of fire source. Moreover, empirical correlations have been correlated as a function of the dimensionless location for gas temperature rises in the shaft and heat fluxes on the wall. Negligible re-radiation among the symmetry walls is the main reason for high flame spread rates.

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Cellular Automata (CA) has been applied to walking behavior modeling of people in evacuation simulation from rooms with several exits, pathways and stairways in business buildings. The simulation results by this CA model were compared with predicted values by public evacuation calculation methods, and the validity of the results was verified. As a result, the reduction of flow rate of the exit as an inductive emergent phenomenon was shown in the simulation. Furthermore, this CA model was applied to the evacuation planning of a high-rise business building, and it was verified in practical design process.

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Lifestyle of households has been changed to expect hygrothermal comfort and healthy environment through widespread use of space conditioning equipment. Meanwhile, energy conservation in buildings is strongly demanded for effective utilization of energy and resources and for environmental preservation. Therefore, optimization of architectural planning with consideration of future changes in building performance and lifestyle are necessary to maintain a balance between energy conservation, hygrothermal comfort and healthy environment. In this paper, household energy consumption is calculated according to applications of heating, cooling, hot-water supply, lighting, electrical appliances, etc. The calculation accuracy is confirmed through comparison with survey findings. Then the simplified prediction formulas of household specific energy consumption are created with multiple regression analysis based on the sensitivity analysis of dynamic energy simulation. And the many cases of household specific energy consumption variation with building specifications and family configuration are calculated. Furthermore, future prospects of the household energy consumption on single-family houses and multiple dwelling houses are examined with future changes of family configuration and building specifications in Hadano by 2030. As the result, it is clarified that the household energy consumption in 2030 will be likely to increase by 10.3% in single-family houses and by 1.4% in multiple dwelling houses by comparison with 1990 levels in case with no energy conservation measures. However it is possible to reduce household energy consumption by up to 38.3% and 36.3% in both houses in a case with energy conservation measures.

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This paper reports on measurements of water sorption isotherm of AAC (Autoclaved Aerated Concrete), commonly called ALC (Autoclaved Light-weight Concrete) in Japan, that contains salt (sodium chloride or magnesium chloride) water with a concentration that is low to saturated with undissolved salt in the material. The definitions of important parameters of porous materials that contain salt are clearly described. Measurement results confirm significant impacts of salt on sorption isotherm particularly at high salt concentrations. The measured sorption isotherm is modeled with the existing model that considers vapor pressure depression and the density of salt water. It is shown that differences between the measurement and the model increase with an increase of the amount of undissolved salt. Therefore, a modified model of water sorption isotherm for materials that do not only contain salt water but also undissolved salt is proposed and discussed. The modified model shows better agreement with the measurement.

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Some of the experimental conditions of JIS A 1905 "Performance test of adsorptive building materials of reducing indoor air pollution with small chamber" are different from the actual building environment. The agreement between a decreasing effect resulted from JIS test method and that under residential indoor environment is suspected. The optimum experimental conditions resulting true effect were investigated with an experimental design. Within the scope of the performance test with 0.15m³ volume of a SUS small test chamber and a specimen of adsorptive building material in this study, appropriate experimental conditions are verified, namely optimum loading factor is 0.5m²/m³ and optimum supply HCHO concentration is 100μg/m³. The decreasing effect of a specimen resulted from a test under this condition is suited to the effect under actual condition.

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The objective of this research is to grasp the effect of high insulation bathtub on heat-retention of hot water, by means of web questionnaire, laboratory experiment, and actual survey in houses. As a result, the followings were obtained; 1) It is indicated that high insulation bathtub is remarkably effective for restraining falling in temperature of hot water in bathtub, and that the insulation effect is not observed clearly when the lid of bathtub is opened even if it is the high insulation bathtub. 2) The insulation performance of bathroom also affects the decrease in water temperature as well as that of bathtub. As with insulation of the bathtub, it is important to insulate the bathroom. 3) It is suggested that to estimate water temperature drop by using bathtub heat loss coefficient would be possible.

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Authors have developed a practical Task and Ambient Air Conditioning system which could respond to layout change of office. The system supplies air from a task unit installed in a partition, using pressure difference between underfloor and office room with a pressurization type under floor air-conditioning system as driving force. Performance experiments of the developed system in an early stage have been conducted using a mock-up to know a quantity required for air supply of a task unit. It was found that 25-35 CMH of supply air volume was obtained as maximum when pressure difference was 10-15 Pa, and it could be reduced to 5-8 CMH as minimum by adjusting the slide shutter for air volume control. In addition to that, by operating guide vanes for airflow direction adjustment, it was possible to control airflow direction from 0 to 45 degrees, and air velocity at a seat position was 0.3-0.4 m/s then. Field performance experiments of the system in a real office was also conducted with a thermal mannequin. It was confirmed that controllability of supply air volume and airflow direction of the system. Equivalent temperature (Teq) of each human body part was almost 28℃ except head part that received direct air flow from task unit. It was confirmed that Teq of head part was 25℃. Results of questionnaire surveys against workers using task units in the office showed that almost all of votes were thermally comfort side.

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Resilience of buildings will be improved by revising the methods of building management. This paper discusses the development of a new building management system for continuance of important operations. In the early stages after a disaster, it is important to judge what has happened, what are the actual conditions, whether important operation spaces can be used, what are the causes of malfunctions, what to do to achieve continuity of function and early restoration of function. This report presents a methodology to support the process of confirming the actual conditions, judgment, adjustment, and action systematically, for the building manager.

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Recently, the population is decreasing in Japan. If urban area keeps expanding to the suburbs, various problems will be caused. For example, daily lives without cars become difficult, efficient development and maintenance of urban infrastructure will be also difficult, and the amount of energy consumption will be bigger. To solve them, compact urban structure is requested corresponding to the population decrease especially in provincial small town. However, it is not clear where dense urban area should be located and how much population should be located there. Consequently, this study aims at examining the preferable future urban structure from the viewpoint of energy consumption in Fuchu city, Hiroshima that is a provincial small town. Concretely, authors make 55 urban structure scenarios in 2035, and calculate the energy consumption for each scenario. As a result, it can be said that compact urban structure will lead to reducing energy consumption, and the effects are different from each other widely depending on scenarios.

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Previous studies have revealed relationships between specific residential environmental factors and residents' health status. However, no previous study has considered the comprehensive health risk due to overall residential environment. Therefore, a large-scale nationwide questionnaire survey was conducted using CASBEE Health Checklist to examine the residential environment of detached houses and residents' health status. Results show that overall residential environment was likely an important determinant of health and was associated with disease prevalence among residents.

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Shades are very effective architectural method for protection from ultraviolet radiation. Ultraviolet radiation has short wavelength and is poured much from the sky. Therefore even if people are under shade of solar radiation, they are exposed to ultraviolet radiation from the sky and get erythema on their skin. We made the UV shade chart to show ultraviolet radiation in the sky and reported it before. In this study, Sky erythema ultraviolet radiance was calculated by the method of regression equation of radiance distribution of sky erythema UV. Points were distributed on the sky elements based on magnitude of radiance. Point distribution of the UV shade chart was done adopting this paper and using various image type. Moreover, Architectural sun protection factor ASPF was proposed as a performance evaluation method of shades using this chart in this study. ASPF is an index to show how much slowly people in shades get erythema as compared with in the open air.

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