BENV0040 - Indoor Air Quality in Buildings – 2023-24SQL

Java Python Coursework – Module BENV0040 - Indoor Air Quality in Buildings – 2023-24

C/W 01: Evaluating Indoor Air Quality in Buildings

Module:	BENV0040- Indoor Air Quality in Buildings
Coursework C/w 01:	Evaluating Indoor Air Quality in Buildings
Weighting:	100% of marks for module
Submission Deadline:	11.00 am, Monday 29 April 2024
Word Limit	3000 words. excluding appendices, references and tables. See notes for further info
Page Limit	There is no page limit for this coursework. However, reports are expected to be concise and professionally written with only relevant material included.
File Format	Word.doc or pdf
Submission instructions	ALL students to submit a complete electronic copy of coursework submission through Moodle (and the Turnitin system). This is the copy that will be used to assess the work so it is the FINAL copy. Please ensure you keep a fullback- up copy of all the work you submit.
Penalties for late submission    and for exceeding the word count	Details can be foundhere.
Use of AI tools	Note the use of Artificial Intelligence tools is NOT permitted for this coursework

Coursework Aims (Learning Outcomes)

Upon successful completion of the coursework, the student should be able to:

•   Outline the main impacts of poor indoor air quality  in buildings, in terms of health, comfort and wellbeing.

•   Evaluate data arising from the monitoring of selected pollutants indoor, and discuss  their significance with respect to relevant guidelines.

•   Suggest suitable air quality remediation strategies, based on evaluation of building performance.

Overall Brief:

This coursework consists in writing a report evaluating the air quality of selected rooms within a case study building. Air quality data arising from a previous monitoring campaign is provided - students are not expected to gather additional monitored data, other than downloading the outdoor data as per instructions provided.

The data is based on actual monitoring data of the sort you are likely to encounter in your professional life. It is from monitoring carried out in 2017 on the fourth floor of Central House (UCL), when loggers were placed in rooms 413, 416 and 418 (see Fig 1 – note current layout now differ). Data from an outdoor weather station is also provided. 

Fig 1 Central House: partial floorplan (4th floor) and approximate location of IAQ loggers in monitored rooms (above) and rooms locations (below)

Resources needed to complete this coursework

A spreadsheet is available on Moodle, containing the data downloaded from&nb BENV0040 - Indoor Air Quality in Buildings – 2023-24SQL sp;Eltek monitors that have been running in these rooms for over a year (Excel spreadsheet (CH  4  2017)). As you will observe there  are  limitations  and   uncertainties  associated  with   monitoring,  and   missing  data  are   not uncommon. The specification for some of the equipment used in the monitoring campaign can be found on Moodle.

In addition, you are to download data from the London Air Quality Network (LAQN) for (1) London    Bloomsbury and (2) Camden - Euston Road – Roadside monitoring stations for the relevant periods (seehttps://www.londonair.org.uk/LondonAir/Dezfault.aspx). Go to the bottom of the page: Tools:     data downloads. Select the monitoring station, then select the species (PM2.5 etc.), the dates of

interest then choose a 15 minutes reading and save the data in csv. format. This can later be added to your copy of the spreadsheet (CH  4  2017) for analysis. Repeat for other pollutants monitored at  Central House 4th  floor and both external monitoring locations.

Using the monitoring data from the Excel spreadsheet (CH  4  2017) and data available from the    London Air Quality Network (LAQN) for (1) London Bloomsbury and (2) Camden - Euston Road –  monitoring stations, consider outdoor levels of PM2.5 and NO2. Discuss these in relation to indoor parameters (i.e. PM2.5, CO2, temperature, humidity and lux levels), plus meteorological data from the weather station.

File(s) are provided on Moodle with a ready-made model of the building in DesignBuilder, which you will use for exploring some of the recommended interventions.

Further Details

Please evaluate and discuss:

1)  The performance of the building and its health implication, by making reference to existing guidelines

2)  The relationships between the external data and IAQ;

3)  Any variations between the rooms;

4)  The potential causes of the above;

5)  Propose any interventions that may improve the IAQ in each of the rooms – a modelling

approach will be used to identify some of these proposed interventions. Discuss the feasibility of these interventions

It is not essential that you visit the rooms in Central House where monitoring took place – some illustrative pictures are provided in this document. If you do, please remember these are working offices, so try to be quiet and unobtrusive. Note, the layout of floor 4 has somewhat changed since the monitoring campaign.

Analyse, compare and contrast the data. Some examples, (these are possible suggestions, but not   exclusive) include: variations between monitoring stations; indoor/outdoor concentrations; variations in room concentrations; comparisons with weather; patterns in ‘typical’ weeks; seasonal variations;   comparisons between pollutants; pollutant concentrations’ frequency distributions. Explain your

findings and their possible causes.

Contrast your results with relevant standards (e.g. WHO, Well and/or ASHRAE/CIBSE standards),   which you will need to identify as part of the assignment. Suggest any possible mitigation strategies based on your results.

Details of the modelling will be provided during classes and relevant resources will be available on the related Moodle sections (in the modelling week). Please note:

1)  You are expected to only model ONE week (in January, see further details in the modelling slides)

2)  Test at least ONE of the three remediation strategies which are illustrated during the modelling tutorials

THE FINAL REPORT

You should use material from the course and other modules and your own research to inform your

report.  The report should include

1)  An Introduction, outlining the aims of the report, and background information on the role of air quality in health, comfort and wellbeing in buildings (supported by relevant references in the field such as research papers, studies and reports),

2)  A Methodology, explaining how you are approaching the task, for example the rationale for the analysis, any tools or statistical methods you might have used and why. Include also some details (e.g. in a Table) with the DesignBuilder model and briefly explain how/why you approached the modelled scenarios.

3)  Results: a combination of diagrams, tables and text illustrating the key findings and discussing the building performance from an air quality prospective. Refer to suitable guidelines when relevant.

4)  Recommended Interventions: an outline of the key strategies which could be utilised to improve the building’s air quality – the impact of some of these interventions (e.g. open windows more frequently) can be tested via the DesignBuilder model. The potential impact of recommended strategies on other aspects, such as energy consumption, noise, thermal comfort etc., should be briefly discussed.

5)  Discussion, Conclusions and Recommendations for further research: you should state and discuss any conclusions that you draw from the exercise. Recommendations for further research are also expected, for example improvement/changes to the type of data which was collected to the study. Also discuss whether you can draw more generalizable conclusions applicable to similar buildings to Central House.

What is included in the Word count:

Please refer toBSEER guidelines, listed below for convenience too. In addition please note:

1)   For the purposes of this coursework, an abstract is NOT required.

2)  Tables to illustrate analysis of findings are NOT included in the word count, if used within reasons. Data Tables (with raw data), if required, should be included in an Appendix and thus are excluded from the Word Count.

General Coursework guidelines on word count:

• Word counts include body text (from the title of the introduction to before the references section) and the body-text part of your references (name, year).

• Abstract, table of contents, any list of figures and tables, acknowledgements, references, appendices, footnotes, endnotes, diagrams and captions are excluded. Data tables - tables which collate raw data (for example, the tabulated responses to a questionnaire) should be included in an appendix and are therefore not counted.

• Students are advised that appendices and footnotes are to be used sparingly and must provide supporting information only. The content of these sections is not considered part of the main body of the assignment and will generally not contribute towards your grade. An electronic file must be submitted (Word format), with the word count clearly stated at the front