18th Healthy Buildings Europe 2023 in Aachen
From June 11 to 14, 2023, the 18th Healthy Buildings Europe took place in Aachen, Germany. The conference was hosted by Uniklinikum Aachen and RWTH Aachen University. Under the motto "Beyond disciplinary boundaries", more than 400 participants from all over the world exchanged ideas on "sustainable solutions for a healthy and sustainable indoor environment".
The Occupant Behaviour and Comfort team of the EBC was strongly represented at the conference and was able to present current research results and new developments in several 10- or 3-minute presentations. Fatemeh Nabilou presented in her talk "Experimental assessment of CO2 tracer gas and aerosol particles during breathing, coughing, and sneezing" a Breathing Manikin and measurement results obtained with it in the Aachen Comfort Cube (ACCu). Nicole Koczorek compared different comfort models in "Evaluation and comparison of the prediction accuracy of thermophysiological comfort models", and Jun Jiang presented results from the Smart Ventilation project in "Development of a Rule-based Control for Hybrid Ventilation Systems and Evaluation by Field Test".
Other presentations were in the area of sensor system development, another core area of the team. Mahmoud El-Mokadem presented in his talk "Using machine learning methods for the development of an electronic nose (E-Nose) for detection of air quality in shopping centers" a multi-gas sensor system and presented results from the EnModus project, while Kai Rewitz addressed the "Developing of an infrared sensor based indoor occupant detection system using machine-learning algorithms". With "Development of a semi-wireless measurement system for monitoring skin temperatures" Dennis Derwein presented another new sensor development, which will be used in the future for tests on test persons. Janine Bardey, who was significantly involved in the organization of the conference, presented in her presentation "Evaluation of a nursing home by a mobile measurement pillar to record indoor ergonomics via sensors and questionnaire" the first results of a field study in nursing homes obtained with the HTxCube.
Furthermore, Tobias Burgholz presented the Heinz Trox Wissenschafts gGmbH and the Heinz Trox Foundation, the main sponsor of the conference, in a workshop. Afterwards, he gave a presentation on various research topics of the gGmbH with a focus on good learning and teaching in schools. Minsheng Xu, also a research associate at gGmbH, then presented the HTxCube, a mobile measurement pillar for subjective and objective recording of comfort-relevant data in the field, in line with Janine Bardey's presentation.
In addition to Prof. Dirk Müller as host and Laura Meyer who helped organize the conference, Philipp Ostmann from the Ventilation Systems team was also present and presented the results of a CFD study on "Rating the Effectiveness of Air Purifiers on Aerosol Removal in a Classroom with Numerical Flow Simulations".
After the pandemic period and numerous online conferences, HBE 2023 provided a welcome opportunity for all participants to engage in lively personal exchanges as well as constructive discussions on current research results and potential collaborations.
For more information on the conference, please visit
https://www.ukaachen.de/en/kliniken-institute/hb2023-europe/about/translate-to-en-welcome-to-hb-europe-2023/