CBE received new funding to support research in innovative control technologies that will reduce natural gas consumption in large commercial buildings, leading to paths for cost-efficient solutions having broad application including in existing buildings.
CBE researchers are part of a research program on “Resilient Cooling for Buildings,” supported by an international association of governments, industry and researchers. The main objective is to support the rapid adoption of resilient, low-energy and low-carbon cooling systems for buildings. This work will also serve to help cities and communities better contend with climate-based and demand-based power outages.
CBE researchers, students and visiting scholars will present recent findings and design tools at the 2020 ASHRAE Winter Conference on February 1-5 in Orlando.
This spring CBE’s research team received funding to support two new projects that will create new ways to gather, analyze and monetize data from commercial buildings, yielding energy cost savings and more comfort for building users.
CBE has released an interactive web-based tool for the early phases of design of high thermal mass radiant systems, that may be used to predict steady-state conditions for both heating and cooling modes, greatly facilitating a standard design practice. However it can also predict dynamic (transient) performance for cooling, taking into account the effects of changing loads and the effects of thermal mass of the building structure.
At the 2019 ASHRAE Winter Conference on January 12th-16th, several CBE faculty, researchers, students and alumni will present recent results and demonstrate new design tools. For those of you not able to attend you can view the PDFs in this blog post.
Project Scientist Fred Bauman recently received the ASHRAE Fellow award, a recognition for those who have distinguished themselves in the HVAC industry. His contributions are based on the extensive research on UFAD that he directed at CBE, leading to deeper knowledge and guidance for these advanced HVAC systems. Recently, he has led a similar efforts to address thermally massive radiant systems.
CBE research has quantified what we all know intuitively: ceiling fans can provide acceptable comfort at temperatures that otherwise would be stifling. This enables passive solutions in milder climates, and may reduce the reliance on air conditioning in climates where passive solutions alone are not sufficient.
This April, CBE welcomed to its consortium Sanken, a Japan-based engineering leader that will collaborate with researchers at CBE and overseas on radiant cooling technologies. This new collaboration builds on Sanken’s efforts that span several decades to innovate and provide customers with reliable and advanced systems and facilities.
An important goal at CBE is to provide tools to assist industry professionals to create energy efficient and comfortable buildings. In 2013 we first launched the online CBE Thermal Comfort Tool as a way to help practitioners predict thermal comfort in buildings, based on ASHRAE Standard 55. We are excited to announce expanded capabilities in the most recent version of the tool.