Category: Tools

2021 in Review: A Year of Resilience and Adaptation

2021 in Review: A Year of Resilience and Adaptation

As we approach the end of 2021, we pause to reflect on the events of the past twelve months. Although we have all endured a second year of a global pandemic, we are encouraged by so much progress that is cross-cutting among academic, business and government sectors. In this year-end post we summarize on how we adapted to challenges and look forward to the promise of 2022.

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Tool Builder Carlos Duarte Joins CBE as Post-Doc Researcher

Tool Builder Carlos Duarte Joins CBE as Post-Doc Researcher

Already a core part of CBE’s research team, Carlos Duarte completed his PhD dissertation earlier this year and has joined CBE as a post-doctoral researcher. We caught up with him via Zoom while the campus is still closed due to the ongoing concerns of Covid-19.

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New Online Design Tool Enables Accurate Design with Ceiling Fans

New Online Design Tool Enables Accurate Design with Ceiling Fans

CBE recently launched an online tool for designing with ceiling fans, making it easier for designers to create highly energy efficient and comfortable spaces. The tool was created based on years of research that have demonstrated that ceiling fans can keep a person cool while using only a fraction of the energy required by air conditioning.

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CBE Rad Tool Enables Better Design of High-Mass Radiant Systems

CBE Rad Tool Enables Better Design of High-Mass Radiant Systems

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.

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New Technologies Offer Solutions for Understanding Indoor Environments

New Technologies Offer Solutions for Understanding Indoor Environments

Companies aspiring to sustainability and wellness have focused on managing workplace indoor environmental quality (IEQ), however undertaking IEQ measurements in a reliable manner can be challenging. In this post we discuss why continuous monitoring technologies are ideal for evaluating building IEQ performance.

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CBE Researchers Present New Methods for Design-phase Analysis of Daylighting, Ventilation and Comfort

CBE Researchers Present New Methods for Design-phase Analysis of Daylighting, Ventilation and Comfort

The gap between predicted and measured building performance poses an ongoing challenge for design teams and other building industry stakeholders. Because reliable methods for predicting building performance are critical to addressing this challenge, students, researchers and faculty at CBE are developing and testing new approaches to building performance simulation. In this post we describe recent and upcoming papers that discuss new and innovative simulation methods.

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Interactive Thermal Comfort Tools add to CBE’s Public Offerings

Interactive Thermal Comfort Tools add to CBE’s Public Offerings

We launched a new suite of free and publicly available online resources to facilitate academic and professional studies of thermal comfort in buildings. These tools can be used to inform questions about thermal comfort, and to encourage the design of climate-responsive and comfortable low energy (and ZNE) buildings.

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New Capabilities for the CBE Thermal Comfort Tool

New Capabilities for the CBE Thermal Comfort Tool

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.

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