The members of N-BE³RG have a wide range of research interests related to high-performance buildings.
Building Envelope Performance
Heat transfer, moisture transport and air-tightness of the walls, roof, doors and windows
Indoor Air Quality
Ventilation; measurement, modeling and mitigation of pollutants such as bioaerosols, respirable suspended particulates (RSPs), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), radon gas, etc.; computational fluid dynamics
Building Controls
Advanced techniques (e.g. Model Predictive Control (MPC), Fuzzy Logic); improved control sequences for HVAC equipment
Automated Fault Detection and Diagnostics (AFDD)
Virtual sensors; diagnostic methods for vapor compression cycle; big data approaches to whole-building fault detection; real-time performance monitoring, AFDD for supermarkets; evaluation of AFDD performance
Equipment
Absorption chillers; fan control; effect of equipment faults on performance; heat exchangers; alternative applications to heat pump technology
Smart Building Systems
Occupancy tracking and occupancy based control, IoT connected buildings, enabling technologies, smart grid interaction
Energy Modeling
Fault enabled models; model validation; simplified equipment models; semi-empirical models