Health impact and building performance coupling: a virtual testbed for health-centric building system operation

Particulate matters (PM) adversely impact air quality in built environment and result in global burden of diseases, in terms of Disability-adjusted Life Year (DALY) lost. The use of active and passive building system could mitigate such indoor air quality (IAQ) issue by controlling the contaminant concentration in a building zone. However, the existing environmental design and operation practices are based on dynamic thermal simulation, which simulate building performance through building heat balances without considering the epidemiological consequence of pollutant’s intake.

This paper proposes a workflow to couple chronic health impact model to EnergyPlus simulation runtime, which enable the evaluation of building performance from a health viewpoint. DALY lost of notional non-domestic buildings in UK are evaluated and hence optimal control rules are recommended. The workflow can benefit built environment professionals and other stakeholders to achieve health-centric building system operation.