Scope

Indoor Environment is a specialty section within the Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering journal. The aim of this new section is to publish research and review articles in the field of indoor environment related to heating and cooling of buildings and the environmental control systems used in them.

Buildings often account for the largest part of a country’s energy usage which is still mainly based on fossil fuels. There is a great emphasis on reducing the reliance of buildings on fossil fuel energy and a move towards Nearly Zero Carbon Buildings (NZCB) globally. This requires a major shift in the way buildings and their integrated heating, cooling and ventilation systems are designed, operated and maintained. Achieving this goal will require a rethink of the traditional designs of and types of systems currently in use. More reliance on building-integrated renewable energy systems, advanced building and system simulation tools, and their integration with Building Information Modelling (BIM) during the design and construction phases of a building project is needed for achieving strict targets for building energy performance. Our section focuses on publishing papers that address these challenging issues.

A range of topics will be encompassed and the section invites original articles in the areas of: human thermal comfort, low energy buildings and human health, indoor air quality, urban environment, airflow modelling, ventilation and air-distribution systems, refrigeration and cooling systems, renewable energy systems for buildings, intelligent building controls, building energy modelling, building information modelling, urban environment, and day-lighting and electric lighting systems.

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