Consumer-Appealing Low Energy Technologies for Building Retrofitting ('CALEBRE')
Lead Research Organisation:
Loughborough University
Department Name: Civil and Building Engineering
Abstract
The UK domestic sector is responsible for almost 40% of national carbon emissions. Any serious attempt to reduce these emissions must recognise the fact that the rate of housing stock renewal is slow, that space and water heating dominate the usage, and that householder appeal and interaction play a paramount role. This places the emphasis on retrofit solutions, and technologies that relate to energy supply and reduction in demand, plus alignment with user lifestyles.For any new technology to be successful, it must be accepted by the end users and meet their needs. These needs include their social, emotional, practical and economic needs. For technologies such as insulation (demand reduction) or heat pumps (energy supply), it is critical that they are considered as a coherent, integrated solution in the context of the built environment and the end users / householders. To this end, this project will identify the barriers and opportunities for possible energy saving and low carbon energy supply technologies, primarily from the perspective of the home and the householders. Other stakeholders in the process, such as installers, decorators, house maintainers and future home owners will also be pertinent to the success of the technologies, so their views will also be considered. This will enable the technologies to be specified and adapted to meet the needs of the ends users whilst satisfying the energy efficiency improvements desired for the property in question. The modified technologies will then be trialled in a dedicated, occupied and instrumented test house, providing further knowledge about technical performance, user interaction and occupant thermal comfort. For the trialled technologies, designs will be devised that encompass their functionality together with their cost-effective manufacture. It is anticipated that every household will require a suite of energy-related measures that matches the limitations of the house and the requirements of the householders. A design and selection tool will be produced for use by householders and installers to identify these measures as a single transaction (a 'one-stop-shop' approach) for deployment. The tool will be available for uptake by industry, and will be capable of expansion to accommodate other technologies in future.The programme of work comprises laboratory-based applied research to modify key technologies as informed by user needs, fundamental research to investigate innovative insulation solutions, and occupied test house trialling. Analysis and modelling will produce a practical design / selection tool for stakeholder use.This project provides an opportunity to bring together a multi-disciplinary team of researchers of international standing, supported by world-class equipment and backed by unique demonstration / trialling facilities. These resources will combine to ensure the accelerated advancement and uptake of selected technologies. The 'CALEBRE' project team is well-placed to significantly advance the field of building energy performance, and to make a real impact on UK domestic carbon emissions.
Organisations
- Loughborough University (Lead Research Organisation)
- E.ON (United Kingdom) (Co-funder)
- Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology University (CEPT University) (Collaboration)
- LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY (Collaboration)
- De Montfort University (Collaboration)
- University of California, Berkeley (Collaboration)
- Care & Repair (England) (Project Partner)
- Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (Project Partner)
- Inbuilt Consulting (Project Partner)
- Edward Cullinan Architects (Project Partner)
- BDR Thermea (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- Building Research Establishment (Project Partner)
- Magdalen Galley-Taylor (Project Partner)
- E A Technical Services Limited (Project Partner)
Publications
Mallaband Becky
(2013)
Integrating User Centred Design into the development of energy saving technologies
Casey S
(2013)
Energetic and hygrothermal analysis of a nano-structured material for rapid-response humidity buffering in closed environments
in Building and Environment
Mallaband B
(2013)
Retrofitting the Built Environment
Mallaband B
(2014)
Blurred lines
Vadodaria K
(2014)
Measured winter and spring-time indoor temperatures in UK homes over the period 1969-2010: A review and synthesis
in Energy Policy
Haines V
(2014)
A persona-based approach to domestic energy retrofit
in Building Research & Information
Haines Victoria
(2014)
The role of user centred design in domestic energy demand reduction
Memon S
(2015)
A new low-temperature hermetic composite edge seal for the fabrication of triple vacuum glazing
in Vacuum
Simpson S
(2015)
Energy-led domestic retrofit: impact of the intervention sequence
in Building Research & Information
Gillott M
(2016)
Improving the airtightness in an existing UK dwelling: The challenges, the measures and their effectiveness
in Building and Environment
White J
(2016)
Performance evaluation of a mechanically ventilated heat recovery (MVHR) system as part of a series of UK residential energy retrofit measures
in Energy and Buildings
Memon S
(2017)
Experimental measurement of hermetic edge seal's thermal conductivity for the thermal transmittance prediction of triple vacuum glazing
in Case Studies in Thermal Engineering
Memon S
(2020)
Design and development of lead-free glass-metallic vacuum materials for the construction and thermal performance of smart fusion edge-sealed vacuum glazing
in Energy and Buildings
| Description | Project CALEBRE 'Consumer-Appealing Low Energy technologies for Building REtrofitting' (October 2008 - April 2013) was a £2 million E.ON / RCUK-funded research project comprising a partnership of six leading UK universities (Heriot Watt, Loughborough, Nottingham, Oxford, Ulster, and Warwick), and supported by a Project Advisory Board. Our aim was to contribute to addressing the challenge of reducing the UK's domestic energy demand and carbon emissions. With our focus largely on solid-wall, 'hard to heat, hard to treat' dwellings, we investigated a selection of current, medium and longer-term technologies for domestic energy efficiency refurbishment, with householder perspectives at the heart of our thinking. We approached this from a multi-disciplinary perspective, encompassing a range of techniques that included laboratory testing, simulation modelling, test house field trials and user engagement methods. There are about 8.3 million solid wall properties in the UK, making up 34% of the housing stock and responsible for about 50% of all domestic carbon emissions. Refurbishment of these properties is necessary but challenging, and there are limited choices for reducing wall heat losses. Our scope therefore encompassed the following. Other means to reduce heat demand: - Airtightness and its improvement - Mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) - Advanced window treatments - vacuum glazing - Advanced surface treatments for moisture and temperature control Efficient heat supply: - Gas heat pump technology - Electric heat pump technology - Householders and behaviour: - Attitudes to refurbishment - Retrofit practices - Personal energy tracking - Domestic thermal comfort Detailed research findings have, and continue to be, disseminated through academic papers, conferences, presentations and the media. However, to assist the growing refurbishment industry, to help guide future policy, and to help plan future research directions, many of the key findings are summarised in the form of handy 'Briefing Notes' issued at a project outcomes briefing event held in London on 15 March 2013. Final versions of the CALEBRE Briefing Notes have been collected as a set in a booklet (ISBN 978-1-907382-68-0) shortly to be available at: www.calebre.org. Key outcomes from Project CALEBRE may be summarised as follows. Householders' Attitudes to Refurbishment: For refurbishing older properties, barriers and opportunities have been identified relating to a number of aspects. As regards motivation, timing and cost, the need to repair and desire for comfort are key drivers, not energy demand reduction. Original house features are important to householders, with windows featuring highly amongst cherished items. When it comes to the refurbishment process itself, issues of trust of the professionals selected to carry out the work emerge as important. The project has uncovered some interesting attitudes to airtightness and ventilation which suggest that clear communication will be critical for conveying the benefits of a more airtight house, and of MVHR. Householders' Behaviour - Orders of Retrofit: Using dynamic thermal modelling of a test house, sequences for retrofit of standard energy efficiency measures were investigated. It was found that the order in which retrofit measures are applied does matter, with the benefits and payback times of individual measures varying, depending on the preceding measures already installed. Clearly, this can impact upon refurbishment policies such as the UK's 'Green Deal' and its 'Golden Rule'. Early implementation of measures that achieve significant reductions in annual energy consumption and CO2 emissions, such as wall insulation and double glazing, are likely to yield the greatest cumulative savings. Householders' Behaviour - Occupant Energy Tracking and Thermal Comfort: An innovative measuring technique deployed in Project CALEBRE was a real-time location and energy-tracking system. Installed in a test house, this technology enables the indoor locations of individual occupants to be tracked, together with their energy-consuming behaviours, thus permitting assignment of personal carbon footprints. Whilst not intended for mass-deployment in homes, the technique provides a research tool for investigating domestic in-use occupant behaviour, and can quantitatively show how this might change in response to environmental conditions and refurbishment interventions. Project CALEBRE also undertook field investigations of householders' thermal comfort behaviour, and it is expected that a domestic thermal comfort prediction tool for UK dwellings will be available towards the end of 2013. Airtightness and MVHR: Through practical test house trials, airtightness values achievable in a retrofit context have been measured. Whilst challenging, these levels of airtightness can be realised in practice through attention to detail during installation, and the findings highlight the need for quality of workmanship and the corresponding training that is required, together with confirmation by post-installation measurement. Dynamic thermal modelling of the test house has identified the levels of airtightness needed for MVHR to save energy and carbon, together with the need for proper installation and balancing. Vacuum Glazing Technology: Essentially two or more sheets of glass separated by a vacuum, U values of 0.26 Wm-2K-1 are achievable with triple vacuum glazing. Slimmer than standard double glazing, vacuum glazing can improve the performance of solid wall, and other, building envelopes. The CALEBRE project has brought this technology a step closer commercially via the development of new, lower-cost edge seals. Steps necessary for the long term maintenance of vacuum have been identified. Advanced Surface Materials: Silica-based materials have been engineered for rapid response humidity and temperature buffering. These materials provide moisture absorption properties that are two orders of magnitude better than those currently possible with traditional interior building surface materials. The new materials are currently very expensive, and further research is needed that leads to relatively inexpensive bulk manufacture. However, the new materials offer the potential to control indoor moisture using relatively small surface area treatments for building interior surfaces and thus help minimise potential unintended consequences related to refurbishment and moisture. Heat Pump Technologies: Heat pumps are seen by many as key components of the future energy retrofit of UK homes, so it is essential that they are matched for integration with existing domestic systems. This means that they must offer the householder ease of retrofit, act as simple replacements for an existing boiler, and be capable of operating with the existing radiator network (output at 60oC) whilst still giving good performance. New technologies have been developed in Project CALEBRE to support these requirements. A thermal compressor has been developed and tested for gas-fired heat pumps to achieve 30% annual fuel savings compared with a condensing boiler, and yield a payback time of less than three years. It is planned as a split system, thus saving on garden space, and its commercial development is continuing via a spin-out company 'Sorption Energy'. Economised vapour injection (EVI) and compressor-expander (CE) technologies have been developed for electric heat pumps, allowing operation at high temperature for direct retrofit. EVI is a viable product, competitive with cascade units. In laboratory tests, the CE unit gave a COP (heating) of 4.31, but needs further development. Energy storage is required to manage tariffs and electrical demand. Business Models for Manufacture: Within the project, a systems design and manufacturing methodology has been defined. This has been applied to the design and manufacture of three CALEBRE technologies - gas heat pumps, electric heat pumps, and vacuum glazing - and the requirement specifications for large-scale production have been identified. Many in Government, industry and academia will find the outcomes from Project CALEBRE to be useful and informative. In 2013, the UK Government launched the 'Green Deal' to facilitate large-scale energy efficiency refurbishment of the UK housing stock. The project outcomes are therefore timely for informing Green Deal implementation and its continuing development, together with future directions for research to support the growing energy efficiency refurbishment industry. The work of Project CALEBRE takes its place alongside that of others, in contributing towards the achievement of the UK's 2050 carbon emissions reduction target. The Project CALEBRE research team express their gratitude to E.ON and RCUK for their financial support, without which this work would not have been possible. We also thank our Project Advisory Board (CIBSE, BRE, Edward Cullinan Architects, David Strong Consulting, academic colleagues from Aachen and Loughborough universities and University College London, and observers from E.ON and RCUK) for their advice and guidance throughout. |
| Exploitation Route | As well as the industrial and commercial opportunities identified above, the research can be used as a public engagement tool, to support the Green Deal and its uptake, to underpin further policy design, and to raise awareness of the contributions individuals and families can make towards reducing energy demand, saving money, and combatting climate change. Public engagement might employ media routes to raise awareness in a popular context highlighting cost-saving, comfort and competition as 'ingredients' for mass delivery and entertainment. The research and its outcomes can also be used to engage and educate children and young people, through the design of learning resources for schools. Project CALEBRE also has merit as an example of successful multi-disciplinary collaboration (engineers, scientists, social scientists, practitioners) across a partnership of universities. An example of this is the role of user-centred design for informing the engineering-driven product development process. This research and its outcomes can be used as follows: 1) Training for energy efficiency refurbishers: The findings on levels of domestic airtightness achievable in a practical retrofit context demonstrate the quality of work and attention to detail that is required, together with the benefit of quality assurance through post-refurbishment testing. This should translate to a need for enhanced training of installers, perhaps including some basic building physics. Collaboration with training providers on content and delivery of course materials is a clear exploitation route. 2) MVHR products and installation: Alongside 1) above, the findings illustrate the level of airtightness required for MVHR systems to save energy, and suggest that airtightness improvement, together with MVHR installation, commissioning, and post-fit testing, should be a combined service. An MVHR manufacturer has already modified their product based on action research outcomes from Project CALEBRE, and these findings would be of interest to other MVHR manufacturers and installers. 3) Vacuum glazing new edge seals: These are patentable, and together with the need identified in Project CALEBRE to employ techniques for maintaining long-term in-use vacuum, points to a clear exploitation route in partnership with a glazing manufacturer. This is in progress. 4) New heat pump technologies: A new gas-fired heat pump incorporating the thermal compressor technology developed in Project CALEBRE is being taken forward commercially via the formation of the spin-out company 'Sorption Energy'. New components to improve electric heat pumps require further development and testing. The work will lead to gas and electric heat pumps capable of direct retrofit to existing homes and heating systems. Exploitation could be pursued with relevant heat pump manufacturers. 5) New moisture and temperature control materials: These can help buffer and control indoor moisture levels. Engineered within Project CALEBRE, further research is now needed to achieve low-cost bulk manufacture. This, in turn, can lead to development of indoor surface treatments for control of moisture, and reduction of condensation and mould risks. Ultimately, collaboration with chemical engineering-based manufacturers will be required for mass material production, followed by collaboration with interior decoration product designers and manufacturers to develop practical building internal surface treatments that incorporate the new material. 6) Householders' attitudes to refurbishment: The findings identified about householder attitudes, lifestyles and personas can be used to further customise products and services aimed at the growing domestic energy efficiency refurbishment market. Project CALEBRE findings and knowledge have already been used to design a bespoke training course for E.ON staff as regards crafting of customer propositions on energy efficiency improvements. This type of activity can be expanded to include others involved at the interface of customers with energy products and services. 7) Green Deal Assessors: For planning energy refurbishment measures, the finding that order of retrofit matters, together with the effect on energy savings and payback, should be essential knowledge for all Green Deal assessors. This can be used by Green Deal providers, and by DECC for taking into account in further policy design. 8) New research technique: The indoor occupant tracking system offers a new research tool to academics and researchers for quantitatively assessing the impact of energy-saving measures on occupant behaviours and personal carbon footprints. 9) Domestic thermal comfort assessment: Findings to be published about winter and springtime indoor domestic temperatures in the UK will be of interest to academics and policy-makers. A thermal comfort prediction model for UK domestic dwellings will also be published, that can support comfort and energy efficiency improvements for homes (relevant to Green Deal assessors, policymakers, and academics). 10) Project CALEBRE findings suggest the following further lines of research enquiry: i) the need for more understanding of the interaction between householders and domestic technical systems, and how these relate to energy demand and achievement of comfort; ii) based on i), how this understanding can be incorporated to develop new and improved energy efficiency products; iii) inclusion of economic aspects to establish cost-effectiveness as an additional metric in evaluating selected technologies; iv) further development of selected CALEBRE technologies, including heat pumps, vacuum glazing and moisture-buffering materials production. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Construction,Education,Energy,Environment |
| URL | http://www.calebre.org |
| Description | There has been some interest from an organisation working for the US Department of Energy, who are interested in refurbishment of US housing. They have downloaded material about the project, and have been supplied with links to relevant papers from the project, with an invitation to further detailed discussions. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2016 |
| Sector | Education |
| Impact Types | Policy & public services |
| Description | DEFACTO (Digital Energy Feedback and Control Technology Optimisation) |
| Amount | £1,547,189 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/K00249X/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2012 |
| End | 10/2017 |
| Description | End Use Energy Demand Centre, i-STUTE (Interdisciplinary Centre for the Storage, Transformation and Upgrading of Thermal Energy |
| Amount | £5,213,689 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/K011847/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 04/2013 |
| End | 03/2018 |
| Title | Components to improve heat pump performance (gas and electric heat pumps) |
| Description | Project CALEBRE has furthered the development of heat pump technology components (gas and electric heat pumps) (Ulster and Warwick Universities) |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Commercial development is being explored through a spin-out company (Sorption Energy). Further testing is required on other components |
| Title | Improves edge seals for vacuum glazing |
| Description | A lower cost edge seal for sealing vacuum glazing has been developed as part of the CALEBRE Project (Ulster and Loughborough Universities). |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Potential commercialisation routes are being explored |
| Title | Moisture-absorbing material for buffering of moisture in dwellings |
| Description | A nano-technology based material with significantly increased moisture absorbing capability compared with traditional building surface finishes. This may lead to a means for control of moisture migration in buildings in the future, especially as insulation levels are improved. This was developed jointly by the groups at Nottingham and Oxford Universities, both members of the CALEBRE team. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Not aware to date |
| Title | Time line tool |
| Description | Development of a novel method for exploring home improvements over time |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The timeline tool is available as part of a paper |
| Title | Home Improvement Personas |
| Description | Development of a set of home improvement personas |
| Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The personas are available to others as part of a paper |
| Title | Thermal comfort prediction model for the domestic environment (preliminary version) |
| Description | A preliminary thermal comfort prediction model for the UK domestic environment has been developed, partly as an outcome of the CALEBRE Project, and partly as the PhD of the RA employed on the project. The findings to date arise from intervention studies in 20 homes. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | None to date, the PhD has only just been completed (Nov 2014) and the model and its development are yet to be published. |
| Description | Reducing global energy use in buildings while improving occupant comfort and well-being: reversing the growing trend toward energy-intensive air conditioning |
| Organisation | Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology University (CEPT University) |
| Country | India |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Contributions Made Loughborough University (LU): Overall project co-ordination and reporting; overall co-ordination of the field studies internationally, detailed conduct of the UK field studies; collaboration with UCB in developing the coupled CFD with detailed human thermophysiology and comfort models, modelling and validation. At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contracts, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researchers (in progress), preliminary data-gathering completed for residential naturally-ventilated buildings At the 12-month reporting stage (April 2015): i) provision of additional resource in the form of one MRes and one MSc student enabled high quality publicity material to be developed and opportunity to include additional households in the field study. ii) Development of an innovative Online Home Thermal Comfort Survey of international applicability. iii) New Thermal Comfort Survey equipment provided by LU - state of the art measuring technology. iv) HOBO monitoring Technique refined following testing in LU Calibration Chamber. v) Training of international researchers in field study techniques involving LU, DMU, CEPT, and effected through overseas visit from a researcher from CEPT to LU. vi) LU has advised CEPT in the establishment of an ethics procedure, which is in development. vii) Recruitment of participants for field study and commencement of field study in a number of homes, weekly data now being collected, collated and processed as part of early stage analysis. viii) Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), equipment purchased by LU (in kind contribution) for use in work developed from GII . ix) Account provision made for DMU for HPC cluster at LU. At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): The recruitment of 27 participants, aged 7-70 years, in 11 houses, supplemented by a further 4 highly-insulated houses, completes the LU-DMU/UK recruitment for the field study. An environmental thermal survey using Dantec Dynamics' ComfortSense system (complying with thermal comfort measurement standards according to EN 13182, ISO 7726, ISO 7730, ASHRAE standard 55 and ASHRAE standard 113) has been completed in each of the homes. Sensors (Hobo) for logging temperature and humidity owned by LU and DMU have been calibrated together using LU's water bath calibration system and environmental chamber. The LU and DMU Hobos were distributed amongst the three field study partners (LU, DMU and CEPT). LU-DMU Hobos are now fully installed in all recruited homes. Participants have been completing the weekly Thermal Comfort and Air Motion Online Survey over the UK summer period 2015 and are continuing into the beginning of the UK heating season. A total of 400 individual surveys have been completed to date. The MRes and MSc students (as previously mentioned) have now completed and submitted their respective dissertations on i) Room Air Motion Evaluation, and ii) Activity and its impact on Thermal Comfort in the residential environment. Both students were trained in the use of Dantec Dynamics' ComfortSense system, setting and installing of temperature and humidity sensors, research ethics and safe working practices, working with participants, online survey skills, analysis and report writing, all in the context of a field study working in a residential environment. A final year undergraduate student and two further MSc students have now been recruited onto the project and are identifying their chosen lines of investigation. The legacy IESD-Fiala model has been verified and transferred to the High Performance Cluster at Loughborough University (LU). LU have granted access to De Montfort University (DMU) to test the model and for further development. LU have now commenced development of the simulation test cases for use as training material for CEPT University. Some members of the GII team have been invited to participate in the International Energy Agency (IEA) Annex 69 project on residential thermal comfort. Details of this GII project have been presented to Annex 69 by Hui Zhang and Ed Arens at a meeting in Beijing on 19-20 October 2015, with a message of availability for collaboration. D.L.Loveday, also contributed to the Annex 69 in London on 6-7 April 2016. At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) The field study of the UK houses is now complete, and the sensors have been removed from the properties. At the same time, an exit survey was completed to establish the extent to which the weekly-supplied survey data was representative of the general lifestyle patterns, behaviours and sensations of the participants; ii) the gathered data are now undergoing a checking and cleaning process, in preparation for submission to the UCB database. The cleaned data will also be available for analysis, and this early analysis is being undertaken initially by MSc and MRes students, as potential added value to the GII project; iii) Preliminary analysis of the data from the UK houses has been completed, and these results are being presented in a paper accepted for presentation at the Windsor conference, the key conference in the thermal comfort field, scheduled for April 2016. The analysis has shown some interesting findings in relation to air motion practices, as well as to residential footwear practices, as compared across summer (June, July, August 2015) and winter (September, October, November 2015) periods; iv) in terms of developments on the modelling aspects, some preliminary validation of the coupled airflow/thermal comfort model has been successfully undertaken using the LU environmental room and thermal manikin, for the case of a floor-mounted fan. The results of this work are being presented at ISO 2016; v) a visit of the LU team to CEPT was set up and took place from 7-11 March 2016. The purpose of this visit was to confirm alignment of residential data collection methods (confirmed), to deliver a specially-prepared webinar on the capabilities and usage of the coupled model and to answer any questions, and to finalise arrangements for further model validation using data collected from detailed experimental measurement campaigns in the Indian homes and in CEPT test cells. Further validation is planned for the situation of ceiling fans characterisation (very common in India), and not now for the case of evaporative cooling (less representative of residential situations in India). The visit was very successful in finalising actions for the remaining 6 months of the project, to include evaluation of energy savings and comfort hours from single residence to stock level for the city of Ahmedabad, India. Furthermore, a list of key papers planned as outcomes from the project were jointly developed for consideration and agreement by the whole GII project team. For period April-November 2016: Completion of the compilation, cleaning and curation of the UK field study data, together with necessary analytical components. UCB PhD student visited LU to identify procedures and requirements for data alignment from the field studies to the UCB database and visualisation tool. CEPT senior researcher visited LU for an intense working week to agree data cleaning and analysis steps of the field data, inclusive of cultural variations and interpretations (clothing, etc). LU PhD student visited CBE for knowledge exchange and detailing of modelling processes. The modelling work in the project during this time involved further validation of the coupled model, development of the ceiling fan CFD model, application of the coupled system to a typical Indian domestic scenario, and an estimate of the possible energy savings due to the use of air movement to increase the cooling set point temperature. We continued leadership and management of the project to its funded end. We are currently facilitating continued work and collaboration beyond the end of the project to enable on-going impacts and outputs from the project to be realised. |
| Collaborator Contribution | UC Berkeley (UCB): collation of field study data from all three countries, creation and analysis of the database, collaboration with LU on the coupled CFD model, revision of standards At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contract, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researchers (in progress), establishment of 'mixed mode' definition, preparations for data loading into database. At the 12-month reporting stage (April 2015): recruitment completed of 2 researchers. Data gathering of 70 articles sourced by LU, CEPT, DMU. Identification of raw data sets and co-ordination of sourcing raw data from authors of the identified 70 papers. Development of new relational database underway, including a metafile that itself will be developed as a tool for the data standardised process required to harmonise data sets. At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): Secondment has taken place of a researcher from Slovak University to assist with the ongoing data gathering and integration of raw data from existing thermal comfort data sets, into the database. The following authors have confirmed their willingness to collaborate and to share their data, and have established a future collaboration with the UCB team: 1. Rachel Becker (Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology) 2. Rauno Holopainen (Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Finland) 3. Targo Kalamees (Tallin University of Technology, Estonia) 4. Manoj Singh Kumar (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India) 5. Andrius Jurelionis (Kaunas University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Lithuania) 6. Ricardo Barbosa (Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research, Departamento de Ciências e Engenharia do Ambiente, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal) 7. Veronika Földváry (Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Slovakia) 8. Hana Bukovianska Pustayová (Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Slovakia) 9. C. Bouden (Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Tunis) 10. Tsuzuki Kazuyo (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan) 11. Swallow Yan (Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, China) 12. Salvatore Carlucci (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway) 13. Harimi Djamila (School of Engineering and Information Technology, Materials and Mineral Research Unit, Thermal and Environmental Research Group, University Malaysia Sabah) At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) Additional raw data sets and sourcing of raw data is now complete. ii) The Meta table data parameters and labels are now complete. The meta table is the key to establish the relational database. It includes name of the authors, title of the publication, period of data acquisition, location of the study, season, climate zone, building characteristics, ventilation characteristics, and the raw data that the CBE team matched with the headers (list of the investigated parameters). iii) During the establishment of the relational database, UCB has identified the needs and requirements of what the relational database requires. Due to the complexities of the relational database, it has become evident that it is necessary to create a single large file of all the data sets, rather than drawing from different files. The large single file will use the same format as in the Meta table. So far, half of the collected data has been incorporated into the single large file manually. iv) A further challenge is that, due to the complexity and lack of consistency in the format of data brought together from various sources, (that is, the authors of relevant published work in the literature that was identified during the 'data gathering exercise' of the GII Project) it became necessary to hand-enter these data. v) CBE is working on the improvement of the thermal comfort field study data visualization tool. The tool is built with the statistical package R, using the "ggplot2" library for visualization and the "shiny" library as the interface between R and html (R Core Team, 2013; Wickham, 2009; RStudio Inc., 2013). The interface has dropdown menus, sliders, and input fields that allow users to filter the overall database based on the building location, cooling strategy, and program. Users can choose the metrics for the axes and for calculating satisfaction, the width of the bins, and the minimum number of votes that are required in a bin for it to be displayed. The screen then gives users immediate feedback, visualizing the results based on the input parameters and filters. In addition to the graph, there is a data table that indicates the sources of the data and the mean values of the basic physical and survey responses for each city that is included. We have identified the way to have the tool to work with the data format of the current single large file. We also have fixed a few small bugs in the tool. For period April-November 2016: UCB PhD student visited LU to identify requirements for smooth transition of data from the field studies into the UCB database and visualisation tool. UCB have also been working on air movement analysis of data collected from a successful outreach that gathered 6000 rows of residential data. UCB have produced a meta-database, and have analysed the relevant datasets, generating charts and figures. The cleaned UK and India datasets are being integrated with this and similarly analysed. CEPT University (CEPT): Detailed conduct of the Indian field studies, model application, aggregation up to regional scale. At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contract, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researchers (in progress), and preliminary data-gathering completed for non-residential mixed mode buildings. At the 12-month reporting stage (April 2015): Appointed one researcher, with further appointments on going. Field Study: recruitment of 75% of households with consent gained. Final preparations underway for commencement of Field study. A CEPT Research Associate visited LU UK for field study and modelling knowledge, methodology and technical training. Development of ethical procedure from knowledge exchange and guidance from LU. At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): The recruitment of 41 participants, aged 16-75 years, in 20 homes completes the CEPT recruitment for the field study in India, where multi-storey apartments are now the primary building typology for new construction in the residential sector. The building stock recruited for the field study are subdividable into 2 categories, namely 'apartment' and 'bungalow'. Apartments are then subdivided again into the following three classifications: Near Ground Level (apartments on 1st floor) Mid Rise (apartments on 3rd and 5th floors High rise apartments on 6th, 7th and 10th floors Sensors (Hobos, loaned from LU) for logging temperature and humidity have been installed in all homes, maximising collaboration and commonality and providing robust and rigorous data logging. Participants are completing the co-developed weekly Thermal Comfort and Air Motion Online Survey wherever occupants have internet access. To enable other social groups to participate, a paper-based version of the survey has been implemented. The Environmental Thermal Survey has commenced post the monsoon season and is being conducted using the TESTO 480 with two multidirectional air velocity probes. At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) The field study of the twenty Indian residences is now complete, and the sensors are in the process of being removed from the properties. At the same time, an exit survey (the same as the UK exit survey) is being carried out to establish the extent to which the weekly-supplied survey data was representative of the general lifestyle patterns, behaviours and sensations of the participants; ii) the majority of the Indian households completed the survey in paper format due to lack of access to the internet. The data is currently being hand entered into electronic format in preparation for cleaning and data analysis; iii) Visit to CEPT allowed LU and CEPT teams to plan together the remainder of the work. Uncontrolled test chambers at CEPT will be used to characterise ceiling fans, together with detailed data gathered from residences during measurement campaigns conducted by dual CEPT / LU teams during the visit in March 2016. These will be used for validation of the coupled model; iv) Evaluation of air motion generated by ceiling fans as a means for reducing operating hours of air-conditioners whilst maintaining thermal comfort will then be conducted, at individual residence to city scale. For the period April-November 2016: A senior level Research Associate at CEPT has been engaged to oversee the survey data and analysis, and visited LU in August 2016 for a week to work with the LU team to determine the data quality assurance procedures and data analysis steps. The survey responses gathered from 20 residences in India have been entered manually in a format that aligns with the UK data and minimises the likelihood of human error in data entry. The Indian data has been compiled, cleaned and curated, together with necessary analytical components. Predicted energy savings from increased air movement have been calculated. This has been achieved by the use of air movement to increase the cooling set point temperature for a typical Indian apartment using dynamic thermal modelling. A conventional and an unconventional method was adopted. In the former case, the cooling set point temperature does not vary across the year, while in the latter case it is assumed to vary each month according the ASHRAE adaptive model. Scale-up was conducted through calculation of floor areas of the housing stock and development of an algorithm to apportion appropriate natural-ventilation and air-conditioning usage for residential apartments, for estimating expected energy consumptions and savings resulting from increased air motion (the modelling work). De Montfort University (DMU): Computer model validation and application. At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contract, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researcher (in progress), preliminary data-gathering completed for residential mixed mode buildings. At the 12-month reporting stage (April 2015): Received Access to HPC cluster at LU to facilitate collaborative modelling (thermal comfort and airflow coupling). Agreement in principle established with two housing associations, Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust and East Midlands Homes to facilitate the research (ongoing). At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): The recruitment of participants, aged 35-75 years, in 5 homes completes the DMU/UK recruitment for the field study . Environmental Thermal Survey using Dantec Dynamics' ComfortSense system (complying with Thermal comfort measurement according to EN 13182, ISO 7726, ISO 7730, ASHRAE standard 55 and ASHRAE standard 113), loaned from LU, has been completed in each of the homes. Sensors (Hobos) for logging temperature and humidity (calibrated by LU) have been installed in all homes. Participants have been completing the weekly Thermal Comfort and Air Motion Online Survey over the UK summer period 2015 and are continuing into the beginning of the UK heating season. The coupled system is installed and running on the LU cluster At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) The model of human thermal comfort coupled with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) (i.e. the 'coupled model' referred to earlier) is being used by the UK partners (LU and DMU) to model the impact of air movement on human thermal comfort. A webinar has been recorded by De Montfort University to explain to the international project team the background research which led to the modelling techniques being used; ii) A mechanical engineering student at DMU, who is currently conducting a final year project, is modelling an Indian residence (apartment), using information provided by one of the GII partners (CEPT University), in order to study how such buildings perform in different climate zones in India. It is anticipated that the IES-VE model results will be validated using the temperature data gathered by CEPT researchers as part of the GII project. iii) The field study of the 4 UK highly insulated homes finished at the end of December 2015. The HOBO loggers are still to be collected and the exit questionnaire as used in the LU field study will also be carried out. An early analysis has been performed and an abstract has been accepted for the PLEA2016 conference. For the period April-Nov 2016: DMU PhD student visited UCB to discuss aspects of the GII project that relate to highly-insulated dwellings, and to gain insights as to how these issues are handled in the US. DMU cleaned their field survey data and submitted this to LU, making a total UK dataset consisting of 15 residential houses. Undergraduate student modelled one Indian apartment in relation to passive measures and energy performance. Also, DMU assisted with some of the data clean-up necessary for the final field study datasets. |
| Impact | At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contracts, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researchers (in progress), preliminary data-gathering completed, 'gaps' in knowledge becoming clear. At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): An on-line survey for gathering data about thermal sensations and the factors affecting them (current and in the preceding 40 or more minutes), as well as air motion practices and configurations with respect to the occupants, has been developed that is capable of international use. The survey is currently in use in households in the UK and India. At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) A webinar has been produced for information and education exchange by the partners, to support skills transfer between Uk and India related to the coupled air flow modelling aspects of the project. The same webinar is available for use with exchange visits planned with UCB. ii) A paper jointly-authored by all partners has been written and presented at the Windsor conference: Making Comfort Relevant. Period April-Nov 2016: Main outputs from the project can be summarised as follows: i) A cleaned and curated field study dataset (UK and India) has been produced; this will be available for future detailed analysis. ii) UCB database compiled (6000 + data survey entries added, including the UK and India dataset) for meta-analysis. iii) A visualisation tool has been developed that allows users to filter the UCB database based on the building location, cooling strategy, and program. The tool gives users immediate feedback, visualizing the results based on the input parameters and filters. In addition to the graphical interface, there is a data table that indicates the sources of the data and the mean values of the basic physical and survey responses for each city that is included. iv) International on-line residential survey developed, covering household clothing, activities, air motion practices, locations, solar influences, thermal environment and occupant thermal comfort. We intend to make this available to the community in the future. v) Validated coupled model - Research was carried out to test and validate the only existing real-time coupled model of human thermal comfort by comparing simulation results and measured data for a number of different realistic non-uniform scenarios. . The initial results highlighted that this coupled model can effectively predict human thermal comfort in non-uniform environments, being able to represent dynamic conditions around the body in real time. vi) CFD 3D transient model - Initial research suggested that the coupled model is able to predict human thermal comfort in any given indoor configuration, as long as the environment around the human body such as the air movement generated by a desktop fan is accurately modelled. Further research was conducted to develop and validate a CFD 3D transient model of a typical Indian ceiling fan, which has then been used within the coupled system to assess the effects of ceiling fans on thermal comfort in relationship to the position of the occupants. vii) The likely effect on energy consumption of a region of India, by use of higher air motion to offset air conditioning. viii) The project has produced outputs that can contribute to the shaping of recommendations for the future on-going development of standards (eg via ASHRAE, CIBSE, IBPSA and ISO Standards, organisations where the investigators have involvement) |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| Description | Reducing global energy use in buildings while improving occupant comfort and well-being: reversing the growing trend toward energy-intensive air conditioning |
| Organisation | De Montfort University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Contributions Made Loughborough University (LU): Overall project co-ordination and reporting; overall co-ordination of the field studies internationally, detailed conduct of the UK field studies; collaboration with UCB in developing the coupled CFD with detailed human thermophysiology and comfort models, modelling and validation. At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contracts, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researchers (in progress), preliminary data-gathering completed for residential naturally-ventilated buildings At the 12-month reporting stage (April 2015): i) provision of additional resource in the form of one MRes and one MSc student enabled high quality publicity material to be developed and opportunity to include additional households in the field study. ii) Development of an innovative Online Home Thermal Comfort Survey of international applicability. iii) New Thermal Comfort Survey equipment provided by LU - state of the art measuring technology. iv) HOBO monitoring Technique refined following testing in LU Calibration Chamber. v) Training of international researchers in field study techniques involving LU, DMU, CEPT, and effected through overseas visit from a researcher from CEPT to LU. vi) LU has advised CEPT in the establishment of an ethics procedure, which is in development. vii) Recruitment of participants for field study and commencement of field study in a number of homes, weekly data now being collected, collated and processed as part of early stage analysis. viii) Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), equipment purchased by LU (in kind contribution) for use in work developed from GII . ix) Account provision made for DMU for HPC cluster at LU. At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): The recruitment of 27 participants, aged 7-70 years, in 11 houses, supplemented by a further 4 highly-insulated houses, completes the LU-DMU/UK recruitment for the field study. An environmental thermal survey using Dantec Dynamics' ComfortSense system (complying with thermal comfort measurement standards according to EN 13182, ISO 7726, ISO 7730, ASHRAE standard 55 and ASHRAE standard 113) has been completed in each of the homes. Sensors (Hobo) for logging temperature and humidity owned by LU and DMU have been calibrated together using LU's water bath calibration system and environmental chamber. The LU and DMU Hobos were distributed amongst the three field study partners (LU, DMU and CEPT). LU-DMU Hobos are now fully installed in all recruited homes. Participants have been completing the weekly Thermal Comfort and Air Motion Online Survey over the UK summer period 2015 and are continuing into the beginning of the UK heating season. A total of 400 individual surveys have been completed to date. The MRes and MSc students (as previously mentioned) have now completed and submitted their respective dissertations on i) Room Air Motion Evaluation, and ii) Activity and its impact on Thermal Comfort in the residential environment. Both students were trained in the use of Dantec Dynamics' ComfortSense system, setting and installing of temperature and humidity sensors, research ethics and safe working practices, working with participants, online survey skills, analysis and report writing, all in the context of a field study working in a residential environment. A final year undergraduate student and two further MSc students have now been recruited onto the project and are identifying their chosen lines of investigation. The legacy IESD-Fiala model has been verified and transferred to the High Performance Cluster at Loughborough University (LU). LU have granted access to De Montfort University (DMU) to test the model and for further development. LU have now commenced development of the simulation test cases for use as training material for CEPT University. Some members of the GII team have been invited to participate in the International Energy Agency (IEA) Annex 69 project on residential thermal comfort. Details of this GII project have been presented to Annex 69 by Hui Zhang and Ed Arens at a meeting in Beijing on 19-20 October 2015, with a message of availability for collaboration. D.L.Loveday, also contributed to the Annex 69 in London on 6-7 April 2016. At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) The field study of the UK houses is now complete, and the sensors have been removed from the properties. At the same time, an exit survey was completed to establish the extent to which the weekly-supplied survey data was representative of the general lifestyle patterns, behaviours and sensations of the participants; ii) the gathered data are now undergoing a checking and cleaning process, in preparation for submission to the UCB database. The cleaned data will also be available for analysis, and this early analysis is being undertaken initially by MSc and MRes students, as potential added value to the GII project; iii) Preliminary analysis of the data from the UK houses has been completed, and these results are being presented in a paper accepted for presentation at the Windsor conference, the key conference in the thermal comfort field, scheduled for April 2016. The analysis has shown some interesting findings in relation to air motion practices, as well as to residential footwear practices, as compared across summer (June, July, August 2015) and winter (September, October, November 2015) periods; iv) in terms of developments on the modelling aspects, some preliminary validation of the coupled airflow/thermal comfort model has been successfully undertaken using the LU environmental room and thermal manikin, for the case of a floor-mounted fan. The results of this work are being presented at ISO 2016; v) a visit of the LU team to CEPT was set up and took place from 7-11 March 2016. The purpose of this visit was to confirm alignment of residential data collection methods (confirmed), to deliver a specially-prepared webinar on the capabilities and usage of the coupled model and to answer any questions, and to finalise arrangements for further model validation using data collected from detailed experimental measurement campaigns in the Indian homes and in CEPT test cells. Further validation is planned for the situation of ceiling fans characterisation (very common in India), and not now for the case of evaporative cooling (less representative of residential situations in India). The visit was very successful in finalising actions for the remaining 6 months of the project, to include evaluation of energy savings and comfort hours from single residence to stock level for the city of Ahmedabad, India. Furthermore, a list of key papers planned as outcomes from the project were jointly developed for consideration and agreement by the whole GII project team. For period April-November 2016: Completion of the compilation, cleaning and curation of the UK field study data, together with necessary analytical components. UCB PhD student visited LU to identify procedures and requirements for data alignment from the field studies to the UCB database and visualisation tool. CEPT senior researcher visited LU for an intense working week to agree data cleaning and analysis steps of the field data, inclusive of cultural variations and interpretations (clothing, etc). LU PhD student visited CBE for knowledge exchange and detailing of modelling processes. The modelling work in the project during this time involved further validation of the coupled model, development of the ceiling fan CFD model, application of the coupled system to a typical Indian domestic scenario, and an estimate of the possible energy savings due to the use of air movement to increase the cooling set point temperature. We continued leadership and management of the project to its funded end. We are currently facilitating continued work and collaboration beyond the end of the project to enable on-going impacts and outputs from the project to be realised. |
| Collaborator Contribution | UC Berkeley (UCB): collation of field study data from all three countries, creation and analysis of the database, collaboration with LU on the coupled CFD model, revision of standards At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contract, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researchers (in progress), establishment of 'mixed mode' definition, preparations for data loading into database. At the 12-month reporting stage (April 2015): recruitment completed of 2 researchers. Data gathering of 70 articles sourced by LU, CEPT, DMU. Identification of raw data sets and co-ordination of sourcing raw data from authors of the identified 70 papers. Development of new relational database underway, including a metafile that itself will be developed as a tool for the data standardised process required to harmonise data sets. At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): Secondment has taken place of a researcher from Slovak University to assist with the ongoing data gathering and integration of raw data from existing thermal comfort data sets, into the database. The following authors have confirmed their willingness to collaborate and to share their data, and have established a future collaboration with the UCB team: 1. Rachel Becker (Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology) 2. Rauno Holopainen (Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Finland) 3. Targo Kalamees (Tallin University of Technology, Estonia) 4. Manoj Singh Kumar (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India) 5. Andrius Jurelionis (Kaunas University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Lithuania) 6. Ricardo Barbosa (Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research, Departamento de Ciências e Engenharia do Ambiente, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal) 7. Veronika Földváry (Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Slovakia) 8. Hana Bukovianska Pustayová (Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Slovakia) 9. C. Bouden (Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Tunis) 10. Tsuzuki Kazuyo (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan) 11. Swallow Yan (Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, China) 12. Salvatore Carlucci (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway) 13. Harimi Djamila (School of Engineering and Information Technology, Materials and Mineral Research Unit, Thermal and Environmental Research Group, University Malaysia Sabah) At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) Additional raw data sets and sourcing of raw data is now complete. ii) The Meta table data parameters and labels are now complete. The meta table is the key to establish the relational database. It includes name of the authors, title of the publication, period of data acquisition, location of the study, season, climate zone, building characteristics, ventilation characteristics, and the raw data that the CBE team matched with the headers (list of the investigated parameters). iii) During the establishment of the relational database, UCB has identified the needs and requirements of what the relational database requires. Due to the complexities of the relational database, it has become evident that it is necessary to create a single large file of all the data sets, rather than drawing from different files. The large single file will use the same format as in the Meta table. So far, half of the collected data has been incorporated into the single large file manually. iv) A further challenge is that, due to the complexity and lack of consistency in the format of data brought together from various sources, (that is, the authors of relevant published work in the literature that was identified during the 'data gathering exercise' of the GII Project) it became necessary to hand-enter these data. v) CBE is working on the improvement of the thermal comfort field study data visualization tool. The tool is built with the statistical package R, using the "ggplot2" library for visualization and the "shiny" library as the interface between R and html (R Core Team, 2013; Wickham, 2009; RStudio Inc., 2013). The interface has dropdown menus, sliders, and input fields that allow users to filter the overall database based on the building location, cooling strategy, and program. Users can choose the metrics for the axes and for calculating satisfaction, the width of the bins, and the minimum number of votes that are required in a bin for it to be displayed. The screen then gives users immediate feedback, visualizing the results based on the input parameters and filters. In addition to the graph, there is a data table that indicates the sources of the data and the mean values of the basic physical and survey responses for each city that is included. We have identified the way to have the tool to work with the data format of the current single large file. We also have fixed a few small bugs in the tool. For period April-November 2016: UCB PhD student visited LU to identify requirements for smooth transition of data from the field studies into the UCB database and visualisation tool. UCB have also been working on air movement analysis of data collected from a successful outreach that gathered 6000 rows of residential data. UCB have produced a meta-database, and have analysed the relevant datasets, generating charts and figures. The cleaned UK and India datasets are being integrated with this and similarly analysed. CEPT University (CEPT): Detailed conduct of the Indian field studies, model application, aggregation up to regional scale. At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contract, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researchers (in progress), and preliminary data-gathering completed for non-residential mixed mode buildings. At the 12-month reporting stage (April 2015): Appointed one researcher, with further appointments on going. Field Study: recruitment of 75% of households with consent gained. Final preparations underway for commencement of Field study. A CEPT Research Associate visited LU UK for field study and modelling knowledge, methodology and technical training. Development of ethical procedure from knowledge exchange and guidance from LU. At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): The recruitment of 41 participants, aged 16-75 years, in 20 homes completes the CEPT recruitment for the field study in India, where multi-storey apartments are now the primary building typology for new construction in the residential sector. The building stock recruited for the field study are subdividable into 2 categories, namely 'apartment' and 'bungalow'. Apartments are then subdivided again into the following three classifications: Near Ground Level (apartments on 1st floor) Mid Rise (apartments on 3rd and 5th floors High rise apartments on 6th, 7th and 10th floors Sensors (Hobos, loaned from LU) for logging temperature and humidity have been installed in all homes, maximising collaboration and commonality and providing robust and rigorous data logging. Participants are completing the co-developed weekly Thermal Comfort and Air Motion Online Survey wherever occupants have internet access. To enable other social groups to participate, a paper-based version of the survey has been implemented. The Environmental Thermal Survey has commenced post the monsoon season and is being conducted using the TESTO 480 with two multidirectional air velocity probes. At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) The field study of the twenty Indian residences is now complete, and the sensors are in the process of being removed from the properties. At the same time, an exit survey (the same as the UK exit survey) is being carried out to establish the extent to which the weekly-supplied survey data was representative of the general lifestyle patterns, behaviours and sensations of the participants; ii) the majority of the Indian households completed the survey in paper format due to lack of access to the internet. The data is currently being hand entered into electronic format in preparation for cleaning and data analysis; iii) Visit to CEPT allowed LU and CEPT teams to plan together the remainder of the work. Uncontrolled test chambers at CEPT will be used to characterise ceiling fans, together with detailed data gathered from residences during measurement campaigns conducted by dual CEPT / LU teams during the visit in March 2016. These will be used for validation of the coupled model; iv) Evaluation of air motion generated by ceiling fans as a means for reducing operating hours of air-conditioners whilst maintaining thermal comfort will then be conducted, at individual residence to city scale. For the period April-November 2016: A senior level Research Associate at CEPT has been engaged to oversee the survey data and analysis, and visited LU in August 2016 for a week to work with the LU team to determine the data quality assurance procedures and data analysis steps. The survey responses gathered from 20 residences in India have been entered manually in a format that aligns with the UK data and minimises the likelihood of human error in data entry. The Indian data has been compiled, cleaned and curated, together with necessary analytical components. Predicted energy savings from increased air movement have been calculated. This has been achieved by the use of air movement to increase the cooling set point temperature for a typical Indian apartment using dynamic thermal modelling. A conventional and an unconventional method was adopted. In the former case, the cooling set point temperature does not vary across the year, while in the latter case it is assumed to vary each month according the ASHRAE adaptive model. Scale-up was conducted through calculation of floor areas of the housing stock and development of an algorithm to apportion appropriate natural-ventilation and air-conditioning usage for residential apartments, for estimating expected energy consumptions and savings resulting from increased air motion (the modelling work). De Montfort University (DMU): Computer model validation and application. At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contract, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researcher (in progress), preliminary data-gathering completed for residential mixed mode buildings. At the 12-month reporting stage (April 2015): Received Access to HPC cluster at LU to facilitate collaborative modelling (thermal comfort and airflow coupling). Agreement in principle established with two housing associations, Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust and East Midlands Homes to facilitate the research (ongoing). At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): The recruitment of participants, aged 35-75 years, in 5 homes completes the DMU/UK recruitment for the field study . Environmental Thermal Survey using Dantec Dynamics' ComfortSense system (complying with Thermal comfort measurement according to EN 13182, ISO 7726, ISO 7730, ASHRAE standard 55 and ASHRAE standard 113), loaned from LU, has been completed in each of the homes. Sensors (Hobos) for logging temperature and humidity (calibrated by LU) have been installed in all homes. Participants have been completing the weekly Thermal Comfort and Air Motion Online Survey over the UK summer period 2015 and are continuing into the beginning of the UK heating season. The coupled system is installed and running on the LU cluster At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) The model of human thermal comfort coupled with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) (i.e. the 'coupled model' referred to earlier) is being used by the UK partners (LU and DMU) to model the impact of air movement on human thermal comfort. A webinar has been recorded by De Montfort University to explain to the international project team the background research which led to the modelling techniques being used; ii) A mechanical engineering student at DMU, who is currently conducting a final year project, is modelling an Indian residence (apartment), using information provided by one of the GII partners (CEPT University), in order to study how such buildings perform in different climate zones in India. It is anticipated that the IES-VE model results will be validated using the temperature data gathered by CEPT researchers as part of the GII project. iii) The field study of the 4 UK highly insulated homes finished at the end of December 2015. The HOBO loggers are still to be collected and the exit questionnaire as used in the LU field study will also be carried out. An early analysis has been performed and an abstract has been accepted for the PLEA2016 conference. For the period April-Nov 2016: DMU PhD student visited UCB to discuss aspects of the GII project that relate to highly-insulated dwellings, and to gain insights as to how these issues are handled in the US. DMU cleaned their field survey data and submitted this to LU, making a total UK dataset consisting of 15 residential houses. Undergraduate student modelled one Indian apartment in relation to passive measures and energy performance. Also, DMU assisted with some of the data clean-up necessary for the final field study datasets. |
| Impact | At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contracts, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researchers (in progress), preliminary data-gathering completed, 'gaps' in knowledge becoming clear. At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): An on-line survey for gathering data about thermal sensations and the factors affecting them (current and in the preceding 40 or more minutes), as well as air motion practices and configurations with respect to the occupants, has been developed that is capable of international use. The survey is currently in use in households in the UK and India. At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) A webinar has been produced for information and education exchange by the partners, to support skills transfer between Uk and India related to the coupled air flow modelling aspects of the project. The same webinar is available for use with exchange visits planned with UCB. ii) A paper jointly-authored by all partners has been written and presented at the Windsor conference: Making Comfort Relevant. Period April-Nov 2016: Main outputs from the project can be summarised as follows: i) A cleaned and curated field study dataset (UK and India) has been produced; this will be available for future detailed analysis. ii) UCB database compiled (6000 + data survey entries added, including the UK and India dataset) for meta-analysis. iii) A visualisation tool has been developed that allows users to filter the UCB database based on the building location, cooling strategy, and program. The tool gives users immediate feedback, visualizing the results based on the input parameters and filters. In addition to the graphical interface, there is a data table that indicates the sources of the data and the mean values of the basic physical and survey responses for each city that is included. iv) International on-line residential survey developed, covering household clothing, activities, air motion practices, locations, solar influences, thermal environment and occupant thermal comfort. We intend to make this available to the community in the future. v) Validated coupled model - Research was carried out to test and validate the only existing real-time coupled model of human thermal comfort by comparing simulation results and measured data for a number of different realistic non-uniform scenarios. . The initial results highlighted that this coupled model can effectively predict human thermal comfort in non-uniform environments, being able to represent dynamic conditions around the body in real time. vi) CFD 3D transient model - Initial research suggested that the coupled model is able to predict human thermal comfort in any given indoor configuration, as long as the environment around the human body such as the air movement generated by a desktop fan is accurately modelled. Further research was conducted to develop and validate a CFD 3D transient model of a typical Indian ceiling fan, which has then been used within the coupled system to assess the effects of ceiling fans on thermal comfort in relationship to the position of the occupants. vii) The likely effect on energy consumption of a region of India, by use of higher air motion to offset air conditioning. viii) The project has produced outputs that can contribute to the shaping of recommendations for the future on-going development of standards (eg via ASHRAE, CIBSE, IBPSA and ISO Standards, organisations where the investigators have involvement) |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| Description | Reducing global energy use in buildings while improving occupant comfort and well-being: reversing the growing trend toward energy-intensive air conditioning |
| Organisation | Loughborough University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Contributions Made Loughborough University (LU): Overall project co-ordination and reporting; overall co-ordination of the field studies internationally, detailed conduct of the UK field studies; collaboration with UCB in developing the coupled CFD with detailed human thermophysiology and comfort models, modelling and validation. At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contracts, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researchers (in progress), preliminary data-gathering completed for residential naturally-ventilated buildings At the 12-month reporting stage (April 2015): i) provision of additional resource in the form of one MRes and one MSc student enabled high quality publicity material to be developed and opportunity to include additional households in the field study. ii) Development of an innovative Online Home Thermal Comfort Survey of international applicability. iii) New Thermal Comfort Survey equipment provided by LU - state of the art measuring technology. iv) HOBO monitoring Technique refined following testing in LU Calibration Chamber. v) Training of international researchers in field study techniques involving LU, DMU, CEPT, and effected through overseas visit from a researcher from CEPT to LU. vi) LU has advised CEPT in the establishment of an ethics procedure, which is in development. vii) Recruitment of participants for field study and commencement of field study in a number of homes, weekly data now being collected, collated and processed as part of early stage analysis. viii) Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), equipment purchased by LU (in kind contribution) for use in work developed from GII . ix) Account provision made for DMU for HPC cluster at LU. At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): The recruitment of 27 participants, aged 7-70 years, in 11 houses, supplemented by a further 4 highly-insulated houses, completes the LU-DMU/UK recruitment for the field study. An environmental thermal survey using Dantec Dynamics' ComfortSense system (complying with thermal comfort measurement standards according to EN 13182, ISO 7726, ISO 7730, ASHRAE standard 55 and ASHRAE standard 113) has been completed in each of the homes. Sensors (Hobo) for logging temperature and humidity owned by LU and DMU have been calibrated together using LU's water bath calibration system and environmental chamber. The LU and DMU Hobos were distributed amongst the three field study partners (LU, DMU and CEPT). LU-DMU Hobos are now fully installed in all recruited homes. Participants have been completing the weekly Thermal Comfort and Air Motion Online Survey over the UK summer period 2015 and are continuing into the beginning of the UK heating season. A total of 400 individual surveys have been completed to date. The MRes and MSc students (as previously mentioned) have now completed and submitted their respective dissertations on i) Room Air Motion Evaluation, and ii) Activity and its impact on Thermal Comfort in the residential environment. Both students were trained in the use of Dantec Dynamics' ComfortSense system, setting and installing of temperature and humidity sensors, research ethics and safe working practices, working with participants, online survey skills, analysis and report writing, all in the context of a field study working in a residential environment. A final year undergraduate student and two further MSc students have now been recruited onto the project and are identifying their chosen lines of investigation. The legacy IESD-Fiala model has been verified and transferred to the High Performance Cluster at Loughborough University (LU). LU have granted access to De Montfort University (DMU) to test the model and for further development. LU have now commenced development of the simulation test cases for use as training material for CEPT University. Some members of the GII team have been invited to participate in the International Energy Agency (IEA) Annex 69 project on residential thermal comfort. Details of this GII project have been presented to Annex 69 by Hui Zhang and Ed Arens at a meeting in Beijing on 19-20 October 2015, with a message of availability for collaboration. D.L.Loveday, also contributed to the Annex 69 in London on 6-7 April 2016. At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) The field study of the UK houses is now complete, and the sensors have been removed from the properties. At the same time, an exit survey was completed to establish the extent to which the weekly-supplied survey data was representative of the general lifestyle patterns, behaviours and sensations of the participants; ii) the gathered data are now undergoing a checking and cleaning process, in preparation for submission to the UCB database. The cleaned data will also be available for analysis, and this early analysis is being undertaken initially by MSc and MRes students, as potential added value to the GII project; iii) Preliminary analysis of the data from the UK houses has been completed, and these results are being presented in a paper accepted for presentation at the Windsor conference, the key conference in the thermal comfort field, scheduled for April 2016. The analysis has shown some interesting findings in relation to air motion practices, as well as to residential footwear practices, as compared across summer (June, July, August 2015) and winter (September, October, November 2015) periods; iv) in terms of developments on the modelling aspects, some preliminary validation of the coupled airflow/thermal comfort model has been successfully undertaken using the LU environmental room and thermal manikin, for the case of a floor-mounted fan. The results of this work are being presented at ISO 2016; v) a visit of the LU team to CEPT was set up and took place from 7-11 March 2016. The purpose of this visit was to confirm alignment of residential data collection methods (confirmed), to deliver a specially-prepared webinar on the capabilities and usage of the coupled model and to answer any questions, and to finalise arrangements for further model validation using data collected from detailed experimental measurement campaigns in the Indian homes and in CEPT test cells. Further validation is planned for the situation of ceiling fans characterisation (very common in India), and not now for the case of evaporative cooling (less representative of residential situations in India). The visit was very successful in finalising actions for the remaining 6 months of the project, to include evaluation of energy savings and comfort hours from single residence to stock level for the city of Ahmedabad, India. Furthermore, a list of key papers planned as outcomes from the project were jointly developed for consideration and agreement by the whole GII project team. For period April-November 2016: Completion of the compilation, cleaning and curation of the UK field study data, together with necessary analytical components. UCB PhD student visited LU to identify procedures and requirements for data alignment from the field studies to the UCB database and visualisation tool. CEPT senior researcher visited LU for an intense working week to agree data cleaning and analysis steps of the field data, inclusive of cultural variations and interpretations (clothing, etc). LU PhD student visited CBE for knowledge exchange and detailing of modelling processes. The modelling work in the project during this time involved further validation of the coupled model, development of the ceiling fan CFD model, application of the coupled system to a typical Indian domestic scenario, and an estimate of the possible energy savings due to the use of air movement to increase the cooling set point temperature. We continued leadership and management of the project to its funded end. We are currently facilitating continued work and collaboration beyond the end of the project to enable on-going impacts and outputs from the project to be realised. |
| Collaborator Contribution | UC Berkeley (UCB): collation of field study data from all three countries, creation and analysis of the database, collaboration with LU on the coupled CFD model, revision of standards At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contract, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researchers (in progress), establishment of 'mixed mode' definition, preparations for data loading into database. At the 12-month reporting stage (April 2015): recruitment completed of 2 researchers. Data gathering of 70 articles sourced by LU, CEPT, DMU. Identification of raw data sets and co-ordination of sourcing raw data from authors of the identified 70 papers. Development of new relational database underway, including a metafile that itself will be developed as a tool for the data standardised process required to harmonise data sets. At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): Secondment has taken place of a researcher from Slovak University to assist with the ongoing data gathering and integration of raw data from existing thermal comfort data sets, into the database. The following authors have confirmed their willingness to collaborate and to share their data, and have established a future collaboration with the UCB team: 1. Rachel Becker (Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology) 2. Rauno Holopainen (Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Finland) 3. Targo Kalamees (Tallin University of Technology, Estonia) 4. Manoj Singh Kumar (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India) 5. Andrius Jurelionis (Kaunas University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Lithuania) 6. Ricardo Barbosa (Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research, Departamento de Ciências e Engenharia do Ambiente, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal) 7. Veronika Földváry (Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Slovakia) 8. Hana Bukovianska Pustayová (Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Slovakia) 9. C. Bouden (Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Tunis) 10. Tsuzuki Kazuyo (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan) 11. Swallow Yan (Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, China) 12. Salvatore Carlucci (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway) 13. Harimi Djamila (School of Engineering and Information Technology, Materials and Mineral Research Unit, Thermal and Environmental Research Group, University Malaysia Sabah) At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) Additional raw data sets and sourcing of raw data is now complete. ii) The Meta table data parameters and labels are now complete. The meta table is the key to establish the relational database. It includes name of the authors, title of the publication, period of data acquisition, location of the study, season, climate zone, building characteristics, ventilation characteristics, and the raw data that the CBE team matched with the headers (list of the investigated parameters). iii) During the establishment of the relational database, UCB has identified the needs and requirements of what the relational database requires. Due to the complexities of the relational database, it has become evident that it is necessary to create a single large file of all the data sets, rather than drawing from different files. The large single file will use the same format as in the Meta table. So far, half of the collected data has been incorporated into the single large file manually. iv) A further challenge is that, due to the complexity and lack of consistency in the format of data brought together from various sources, (that is, the authors of relevant published work in the literature that was identified during the 'data gathering exercise' of the GII Project) it became necessary to hand-enter these data. v) CBE is working on the improvement of the thermal comfort field study data visualization tool. The tool is built with the statistical package R, using the "ggplot2" library for visualization and the "shiny" library as the interface between R and html (R Core Team, 2013; Wickham, 2009; RStudio Inc., 2013). The interface has dropdown menus, sliders, and input fields that allow users to filter the overall database based on the building location, cooling strategy, and program. Users can choose the metrics for the axes and for calculating satisfaction, the width of the bins, and the minimum number of votes that are required in a bin for it to be displayed. The screen then gives users immediate feedback, visualizing the results based on the input parameters and filters. In addition to the graph, there is a data table that indicates the sources of the data and the mean values of the basic physical and survey responses for each city that is included. We have identified the way to have the tool to work with the data format of the current single large file. We also have fixed a few small bugs in the tool. For period April-November 2016: UCB PhD student visited LU to identify requirements for smooth transition of data from the field studies into the UCB database and visualisation tool. UCB have also been working on air movement analysis of data collected from a successful outreach that gathered 6000 rows of residential data. UCB have produced a meta-database, and have analysed the relevant datasets, generating charts and figures. The cleaned UK and India datasets are being integrated with this and similarly analysed. CEPT University (CEPT): Detailed conduct of the Indian field studies, model application, aggregation up to regional scale. At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contract, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researchers (in progress), and preliminary data-gathering completed for non-residential mixed mode buildings. At the 12-month reporting stage (April 2015): Appointed one researcher, with further appointments on going. Field Study: recruitment of 75% of households with consent gained. Final preparations underway for commencement of Field study. A CEPT Research Associate visited LU UK for field study and modelling knowledge, methodology and technical training. Development of ethical procedure from knowledge exchange and guidance from LU. At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): The recruitment of 41 participants, aged 16-75 years, in 20 homes completes the CEPT recruitment for the field study in India, where multi-storey apartments are now the primary building typology for new construction in the residential sector. The building stock recruited for the field study are subdividable into 2 categories, namely 'apartment' and 'bungalow'. Apartments are then subdivided again into the following three classifications: Near Ground Level (apartments on 1st floor) Mid Rise (apartments on 3rd and 5th floors High rise apartments on 6th, 7th and 10th floors Sensors (Hobos, loaned from LU) for logging temperature and humidity have been installed in all homes, maximising collaboration and commonality and providing robust and rigorous data logging. Participants are completing the co-developed weekly Thermal Comfort and Air Motion Online Survey wherever occupants have internet access. To enable other social groups to participate, a paper-based version of the survey has been implemented. The Environmental Thermal Survey has commenced post the monsoon season and is being conducted using the TESTO 480 with two multidirectional air velocity probes. At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) The field study of the twenty Indian residences is now complete, and the sensors are in the process of being removed from the properties. At the same time, an exit survey (the same as the UK exit survey) is being carried out to establish the extent to which the weekly-supplied survey data was representative of the general lifestyle patterns, behaviours and sensations of the participants; ii) the majority of the Indian households completed the survey in paper format due to lack of access to the internet. The data is currently being hand entered into electronic format in preparation for cleaning and data analysis; iii) Visit to CEPT allowed LU and CEPT teams to plan together the remainder of the work. Uncontrolled test chambers at CEPT will be used to characterise ceiling fans, together with detailed data gathered from residences during measurement campaigns conducted by dual CEPT / LU teams during the visit in March 2016. These will be used for validation of the coupled model; iv) Evaluation of air motion generated by ceiling fans as a means for reducing operating hours of air-conditioners whilst maintaining thermal comfort will then be conducted, at individual residence to city scale. For the period April-November 2016: A senior level Research Associate at CEPT has been engaged to oversee the survey data and analysis, and visited LU in August 2016 for a week to work with the LU team to determine the data quality assurance procedures and data analysis steps. The survey responses gathered from 20 residences in India have been entered manually in a format that aligns with the UK data and minimises the likelihood of human error in data entry. The Indian data has been compiled, cleaned and curated, together with necessary analytical components. Predicted energy savings from increased air movement have been calculated. This has been achieved by the use of air movement to increase the cooling set point temperature for a typical Indian apartment using dynamic thermal modelling. A conventional and an unconventional method was adopted. In the former case, the cooling set point temperature does not vary across the year, while in the latter case it is assumed to vary each month according the ASHRAE adaptive model. Scale-up was conducted through calculation of floor areas of the housing stock and development of an algorithm to apportion appropriate natural-ventilation and air-conditioning usage for residential apartments, for estimating expected energy consumptions and savings resulting from increased air motion (the modelling work). De Montfort University (DMU): Computer model validation and application. At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contract, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researcher (in progress), preliminary data-gathering completed for residential mixed mode buildings. At the 12-month reporting stage (April 2015): Received Access to HPC cluster at LU to facilitate collaborative modelling (thermal comfort and airflow coupling). Agreement in principle established with two housing associations, Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust and East Midlands Homes to facilitate the research (ongoing). At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): The recruitment of participants, aged 35-75 years, in 5 homes completes the DMU/UK recruitment for the field study . Environmental Thermal Survey using Dantec Dynamics' ComfortSense system (complying with Thermal comfort measurement according to EN 13182, ISO 7726, ISO 7730, ASHRAE standard 55 and ASHRAE standard 113), loaned from LU, has been completed in each of the homes. Sensors (Hobos) for logging temperature and humidity (calibrated by LU) have been installed in all homes. Participants have been completing the weekly Thermal Comfort and Air Motion Online Survey over the UK summer period 2015 and are continuing into the beginning of the UK heating season. The coupled system is installed and running on the LU cluster At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) The model of human thermal comfort coupled with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) (i.e. the 'coupled model' referred to earlier) is being used by the UK partners (LU and DMU) to model the impact of air movement on human thermal comfort. A webinar has been recorded by De Montfort University to explain to the international project team the background research which led to the modelling techniques being used; ii) A mechanical engineering student at DMU, who is currently conducting a final year project, is modelling an Indian residence (apartment), using information provided by one of the GII partners (CEPT University), in order to study how such buildings perform in different climate zones in India. It is anticipated that the IES-VE model results will be validated using the temperature data gathered by CEPT researchers as part of the GII project. iii) The field study of the 4 UK highly insulated homes finished at the end of December 2015. The HOBO loggers are still to be collected and the exit questionnaire as used in the LU field study will also be carried out. An early analysis has been performed and an abstract has been accepted for the PLEA2016 conference. For the period April-Nov 2016: DMU PhD student visited UCB to discuss aspects of the GII project that relate to highly-insulated dwellings, and to gain insights as to how these issues are handled in the US. DMU cleaned their field survey data and submitted this to LU, making a total UK dataset consisting of 15 residential houses. Undergraduate student modelled one Indian apartment in relation to passive measures and energy performance. Also, DMU assisted with some of the data clean-up necessary for the final field study datasets. |
| Impact | At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contracts, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researchers (in progress), preliminary data-gathering completed, 'gaps' in knowledge becoming clear. At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): An on-line survey for gathering data about thermal sensations and the factors affecting them (current and in the preceding 40 or more minutes), as well as air motion practices and configurations with respect to the occupants, has been developed that is capable of international use. The survey is currently in use in households in the UK and India. At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) A webinar has been produced for information and education exchange by the partners, to support skills transfer between Uk and India related to the coupled air flow modelling aspects of the project. The same webinar is available for use with exchange visits planned with UCB. ii) A paper jointly-authored by all partners has been written and presented at the Windsor conference: Making Comfort Relevant. Period April-Nov 2016: Main outputs from the project can be summarised as follows: i) A cleaned and curated field study dataset (UK and India) has been produced; this will be available for future detailed analysis. ii) UCB database compiled (6000 + data survey entries added, including the UK and India dataset) for meta-analysis. iii) A visualisation tool has been developed that allows users to filter the UCB database based on the building location, cooling strategy, and program. The tool gives users immediate feedback, visualizing the results based on the input parameters and filters. In addition to the graphical interface, there is a data table that indicates the sources of the data and the mean values of the basic physical and survey responses for each city that is included. iv) International on-line residential survey developed, covering household clothing, activities, air motion practices, locations, solar influences, thermal environment and occupant thermal comfort. We intend to make this available to the community in the future. v) Validated coupled model - Research was carried out to test and validate the only existing real-time coupled model of human thermal comfort by comparing simulation results and measured data for a number of different realistic non-uniform scenarios. . The initial results highlighted that this coupled model can effectively predict human thermal comfort in non-uniform environments, being able to represent dynamic conditions around the body in real time. vi) CFD 3D transient model - Initial research suggested that the coupled model is able to predict human thermal comfort in any given indoor configuration, as long as the environment around the human body such as the air movement generated by a desktop fan is accurately modelled. Further research was conducted to develop and validate a CFD 3D transient model of a typical Indian ceiling fan, which has then been used within the coupled system to assess the effects of ceiling fans on thermal comfort in relationship to the position of the occupants. vii) The likely effect on energy consumption of a region of India, by use of higher air motion to offset air conditioning. viii) The project has produced outputs that can contribute to the shaping of recommendations for the future on-going development of standards (eg via ASHRAE, CIBSE, IBPSA and ISO Standards, organisations where the investigators have involvement) |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| Description | Reducing global energy use in buildings while improving occupant comfort and well-being: reversing the growing trend toward energy-intensive air conditioning |
| Organisation | University of California, Berkeley |
| Department | Center for the Built Environment (CBE) |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Contributions Made Loughborough University (LU): Overall project co-ordination and reporting; overall co-ordination of the field studies internationally, detailed conduct of the UK field studies; collaboration with UCB in developing the coupled CFD with detailed human thermophysiology and comfort models, modelling and validation. At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contracts, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researchers (in progress), preliminary data-gathering completed for residential naturally-ventilated buildings At the 12-month reporting stage (April 2015): i) provision of additional resource in the form of one MRes and one MSc student enabled high quality publicity material to be developed and opportunity to include additional households in the field study. ii) Development of an innovative Online Home Thermal Comfort Survey of international applicability. iii) New Thermal Comfort Survey equipment provided by LU - state of the art measuring technology. iv) HOBO monitoring Technique refined following testing in LU Calibration Chamber. v) Training of international researchers in field study techniques involving LU, DMU, CEPT, and effected through overseas visit from a researcher from CEPT to LU. vi) LU has advised CEPT in the establishment of an ethics procedure, which is in development. vii) Recruitment of participants for field study and commencement of field study in a number of homes, weekly data now being collected, collated and processed as part of early stage analysis. viii) Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), equipment purchased by LU (in kind contribution) for use in work developed from GII . ix) Account provision made for DMU for HPC cluster at LU. At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): The recruitment of 27 participants, aged 7-70 years, in 11 houses, supplemented by a further 4 highly-insulated houses, completes the LU-DMU/UK recruitment for the field study. An environmental thermal survey using Dantec Dynamics' ComfortSense system (complying with thermal comfort measurement standards according to EN 13182, ISO 7726, ISO 7730, ASHRAE standard 55 and ASHRAE standard 113) has been completed in each of the homes. Sensors (Hobo) for logging temperature and humidity owned by LU and DMU have been calibrated together using LU's water bath calibration system and environmental chamber. The LU and DMU Hobos were distributed amongst the three field study partners (LU, DMU and CEPT). LU-DMU Hobos are now fully installed in all recruited homes. Participants have been completing the weekly Thermal Comfort and Air Motion Online Survey over the UK summer period 2015 and are continuing into the beginning of the UK heating season. A total of 400 individual surveys have been completed to date. The MRes and MSc students (as previously mentioned) have now completed and submitted their respective dissertations on i) Room Air Motion Evaluation, and ii) Activity and its impact on Thermal Comfort in the residential environment. Both students were trained in the use of Dantec Dynamics' ComfortSense system, setting and installing of temperature and humidity sensors, research ethics and safe working practices, working with participants, online survey skills, analysis and report writing, all in the context of a field study working in a residential environment. A final year undergraduate student and two further MSc students have now been recruited onto the project and are identifying their chosen lines of investigation. The legacy IESD-Fiala model has been verified and transferred to the High Performance Cluster at Loughborough University (LU). LU have granted access to De Montfort University (DMU) to test the model and for further development. LU have now commenced development of the simulation test cases for use as training material for CEPT University. Some members of the GII team have been invited to participate in the International Energy Agency (IEA) Annex 69 project on residential thermal comfort. Details of this GII project have been presented to Annex 69 by Hui Zhang and Ed Arens at a meeting in Beijing on 19-20 October 2015, with a message of availability for collaboration. D.L.Loveday, also contributed to the Annex 69 in London on 6-7 April 2016. At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) The field study of the UK houses is now complete, and the sensors have been removed from the properties. At the same time, an exit survey was completed to establish the extent to which the weekly-supplied survey data was representative of the general lifestyle patterns, behaviours and sensations of the participants; ii) the gathered data are now undergoing a checking and cleaning process, in preparation for submission to the UCB database. The cleaned data will also be available for analysis, and this early analysis is being undertaken initially by MSc and MRes students, as potential added value to the GII project; iii) Preliminary analysis of the data from the UK houses has been completed, and these results are being presented in a paper accepted for presentation at the Windsor conference, the key conference in the thermal comfort field, scheduled for April 2016. The analysis has shown some interesting findings in relation to air motion practices, as well as to residential footwear practices, as compared across summer (June, July, August 2015) and winter (September, October, November 2015) periods; iv) in terms of developments on the modelling aspects, some preliminary validation of the coupled airflow/thermal comfort model has been successfully undertaken using the LU environmental room and thermal manikin, for the case of a floor-mounted fan. The results of this work are being presented at ISO 2016; v) a visit of the LU team to CEPT was set up and took place from 7-11 March 2016. The purpose of this visit was to confirm alignment of residential data collection methods (confirmed), to deliver a specially-prepared webinar on the capabilities and usage of the coupled model and to answer any questions, and to finalise arrangements for further model validation using data collected from detailed experimental measurement campaigns in the Indian homes and in CEPT test cells. Further validation is planned for the situation of ceiling fans characterisation (very common in India), and not now for the case of evaporative cooling (less representative of residential situations in India). The visit was very successful in finalising actions for the remaining 6 months of the project, to include evaluation of energy savings and comfort hours from single residence to stock level for the city of Ahmedabad, India. Furthermore, a list of key papers planned as outcomes from the project were jointly developed for consideration and agreement by the whole GII project team. For period April-November 2016: Completion of the compilation, cleaning and curation of the UK field study data, together with necessary analytical components. UCB PhD student visited LU to identify procedures and requirements for data alignment from the field studies to the UCB database and visualisation tool. CEPT senior researcher visited LU for an intense working week to agree data cleaning and analysis steps of the field data, inclusive of cultural variations and interpretations (clothing, etc). LU PhD student visited CBE for knowledge exchange and detailing of modelling processes. The modelling work in the project during this time involved further validation of the coupled model, development of the ceiling fan CFD model, application of the coupled system to a typical Indian domestic scenario, and an estimate of the possible energy savings due to the use of air movement to increase the cooling set point temperature. We continued leadership and management of the project to its funded end. We are currently facilitating continued work and collaboration beyond the end of the project to enable on-going impacts and outputs from the project to be realised. |
| Collaborator Contribution | UC Berkeley (UCB): collation of field study data from all three countries, creation and analysis of the database, collaboration with LU on the coupled CFD model, revision of standards At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contract, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researchers (in progress), establishment of 'mixed mode' definition, preparations for data loading into database. At the 12-month reporting stage (April 2015): recruitment completed of 2 researchers. Data gathering of 70 articles sourced by LU, CEPT, DMU. Identification of raw data sets and co-ordination of sourcing raw data from authors of the identified 70 papers. Development of new relational database underway, including a metafile that itself will be developed as a tool for the data standardised process required to harmonise data sets. At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): Secondment has taken place of a researcher from Slovak University to assist with the ongoing data gathering and integration of raw data from existing thermal comfort data sets, into the database. The following authors have confirmed their willingness to collaborate and to share their data, and have established a future collaboration with the UCB team: 1. Rachel Becker (Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology) 2. Rauno Holopainen (Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Finland) 3. Targo Kalamees (Tallin University of Technology, Estonia) 4. Manoj Singh Kumar (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India) 5. Andrius Jurelionis (Kaunas University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Lithuania) 6. Ricardo Barbosa (Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research, Departamento de Ciências e Engenharia do Ambiente, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal) 7. Veronika Földváry (Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Slovakia) 8. Hana Bukovianska Pustayová (Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Slovakia) 9. C. Bouden (Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Tunis) 10. Tsuzuki Kazuyo (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan) 11. Swallow Yan (Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, China) 12. Salvatore Carlucci (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway) 13. Harimi Djamila (School of Engineering and Information Technology, Materials and Mineral Research Unit, Thermal and Environmental Research Group, University Malaysia Sabah) At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) Additional raw data sets and sourcing of raw data is now complete. ii) The Meta table data parameters and labels are now complete. The meta table is the key to establish the relational database. It includes name of the authors, title of the publication, period of data acquisition, location of the study, season, climate zone, building characteristics, ventilation characteristics, and the raw data that the CBE team matched with the headers (list of the investigated parameters). iii) During the establishment of the relational database, UCB has identified the needs and requirements of what the relational database requires. Due to the complexities of the relational database, it has become evident that it is necessary to create a single large file of all the data sets, rather than drawing from different files. The large single file will use the same format as in the Meta table. So far, half of the collected data has been incorporated into the single large file manually. iv) A further challenge is that, due to the complexity and lack of consistency in the format of data brought together from various sources, (that is, the authors of relevant published work in the literature that was identified during the 'data gathering exercise' of the GII Project) it became necessary to hand-enter these data. v) CBE is working on the improvement of the thermal comfort field study data visualization tool. The tool is built with the statistical package R, using the "ggplot2" library for visualization and the "shiny" library as the interface between R and html (R Core Team, 2013; Wickham, 2009; RStudio Inc., 2013). The interface has dropdown menus, sliders, and input fields that allow users to filter the overall database based on the building location, cooling strategy, and program. Users can choose the metrics for the axes and for calculating satisfaction, the width of the bins, and the minimum number of votes that are required in a bin for it to be displayed. The screen then gives users immediate feedback, visualizing the results based on the input parameters and filters. In addition to the graph, there is a data table that indicates the sources of the data and the mean values of the basic physical and survey responses for each city that is included. We have identified the way to have the tool to work with the data format of the current single large file. We also have fixed a few small bugs in the tool. For period April-November 2016: UCB PhD student visited LU to identify requirements for smooth transition of data from the field studies into the UCB database and visualisation tool. UCB have also been working on air movement analysis of data collected from a successful outreach that gathered 6000 rows of residential data. UCB have produced a meta-database, and have analysed the relevant datasets, generating charts and figures. The cleaned UK and India datasets are being integrated with this and similarly analysed. CEPT University (CEPT): Detailed conduct of the Indian field studies, model application, aggregation up to regional scale. At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contract, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researchers (in progress), and preliminary data-gathering completed for non-residential mixed mode buildings. At the 12-month reporting stage (April 2015): Appointed one researcher, with further appointments on going. Field Study: recruitment of 75% of households with consent gained. Final preparations underway for commencement of Field study. A CEPT Research Associate visited LU UK for field study and modelling knowledge, methodology and technical training. Development of ethical procedure from knowledge exchange and guidance from LU. At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): The recruitment of 41 participants, aged 16-75 years, in 20 homes completes the CEPT recruitment for the field study in India, where multi-storey apartments are now the primary building typology for new construction in the residential sector. The building stock recruited for the field study are subdividable into 2 categories, namely 'apartment' and 'bungalow'. Apartments are then subdivided again into the following three classifications: Near Ground Level (apartments on 1st floor) Mid Rise (apartments on 3rd and 5th floors High rise apartments on 6th, 7th and 10th floors Sensors (Hobos, loaned from LU) for logging temperature and humidity have been installed in all homes, maximising collaboration and commonality and providing robust and rigorous data logging. Participants are completing the co-developed weekly Thermal Comfort and Air Motion Online Survey wherever occupants have internet access. To enable other social groups to participate, a paper-based version of the survey has been implemented. The Environmental Thermal Survey has commenced post the monsoon season and is being conducted using the TESTO 480 with two multidirectional air velocity probes. At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) The field study of the twenty Indian residences is now complete, and the sensors are in the process of being removed from the properties. At the same time, an exit survey (the same as the UK exit survey) is being carried out to establish the extent to which the weekly-supplied survey data was representative of the general lifestyle patterns, behaviours and sensations of the participants; ii) the majority of the Indian households completed the survey in paper format due to lack of access to the internet. The data is currently being hand entered into electronic format in preparation for cleaning and data analysis; iii) Visit to CEPT allowed LU and CEPT teams to plan together the remainder of the work. Uncontrolled test chambers at CEPT will be used to characterise ceiling fans, together with detailed data gathered from residences during measurement campaigns conducted by dual CEPT / LU teams during the visit in March 2016. These will be used for validation of the coupled model; iv) Evaluation of air motion generated by ceiling fans as a means for reducing operating hours of air-conditioners whilst maintaining thermal comfort will then be conducted, at individual residence to city scale. For the period April-November 2016: A senior level Research Associate at CEPT has been engaged to oversee the survey data and analysis, and visited LU in August 2016 for a week to work with the LU team to determine the data quality assurance procedures and data analysis steps. The survey responses gathered from 20 residences in India have been entered manually in a format that aligns with the UK data and minimises the likelihood of human error in data entry. The Indian data has been compiled, cleaned and curated, together with necessary analytical components. Predicted energy savings from increased air movement have been calculated. This has been achieved by the use of air movement to increase the cooling set point temperature for a typical Indian apartment using dynamic thermal modelling. A conventional and an unconventional method was adopted. In the former case, the cooling set point temperature does not vary across the year, while in the latter case it is assumed to vary each month according the ASHRAE adaptive model. Scale-up was conducted through calculation of floor areas of the housing stock and development of an algorithm to apportion appropriate natural-ventilation and air-conditioning usage for residential apartments, for estimating expected energy consumptions and savings resulting from increased air motion (the modelling work). De Montfort University (DMU): Computer model validation and application. At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contract, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researcher (in progress), preliminary data-gathering completed for residential mixed mode buildings. At the 12-month reporting stage (April 2015): Received Access to HPC cluster at LU to facilitate collaborative modelling (thermal comfort and airflow coupling). Agreement in principle established with two housing associations, Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust and East Midlands Homes to facilitate the research (ongoing). At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): The recruitment of participants, aged 35-75 years, in 5 homes completes the DMU/UK recruitment for the field study . Environmental Thermal Survey using Dantec Dynamics' ComfortSense system (complying with Thermal comfort measurement according to EN 13182, ISO 7726, ISO 7730, ASHRAE standard 55 and ASHRAE standard 113), loaned from LU, has been completed in each of the homes. Sensors (Hobos) for logging temperature and humidity (calibrated by LU) have been installed in all homes. Participants have been completing the weekly Thermal Comfort and Air Motion Online Survey over the UK summer period 2015 and are continuing into the beginning of the UK heating season. The coupled system is installed and running on the LU cluster At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) The model of human thermal comfort coupled with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) (i.e. the 'coupled model' referred to earlier) is being used by the UK partners (LU and DMU) to model the impact of air movement on human thermal comfort. A webinar has been recorded by De Montfort University to explain to the international project team the background research which led to the modelling techniques being used; ii) A mechanical engineering student at DMU, who is currently conducting a final year project, is modelling an Indian residence (apartment), using information provided by one of the GII partners (CEPT University), in order to study how such buildings perform in different climate zones in India. It is anticipated that the IES-VE model results will be validated using the temperature data gathered by CEPT researchers as part of the GII project. iii) The field study of the 4 UK highly insulated homes finished at the end of December 2015. The HOBO loggers are still to be collected and the exit questionnaire as used in the LU field study will also be carried out. An early analysis has been performed and an abstract has been accepted for the PLEA2016 conference. For the period April-Nov 2016: DMU PhD student visited UCB to discuss aspects of the GII project that relate to highly-insulated dwellings, and to gain insights as to how these issues are handled in the US. DMU cleaned their field survey data and submitted this to LU, making a total UK dataset consisting of 15 residential houses. Undergraduate student modelled one Indian apartment in relation to passive measures and energy performance. Also, DMU assisted with some of the data clean-up necessary for the final field study datasets. |
| Impact | At the 6-month reporting stage (October 2014): completion of sub-contracts, establishment of communication protocols, appointment of researchers (in progress), preliminary data-gathering completed, 'gaps' in knowledge becoming clear. At the 18-month reporting stage (September 2015): An on-line survey for gathering data about thermal sensations and the factors affecting them (current and in the preceding 40 or more minutes), as well as air motion practices and configurations with respect to the occupants, has been developed that is capable of international use. The survey is currently in use in households in the UK and India. At the 24-month reporting stage (March 2016): i) A webinar has been produced for information and education exchange by the partners, to support skills transfer between Uk and India related to the coupled air flow modelling aspects of the project. The same webinar is available for use with exchange visits planned with UCB. ii) A paper jointly-authored by all partners has been written and presented at the Windsor conference: Making Comfort Relevant. Period April-Nov 2016: Main outputs from the project can be summarised as follows: i) A cleaned and curated field study dataset (UK and India) has been produced; this will be available for future detailed analysis. ii) UCB database compiled (6000 + data survey entries added, including the UK and India dataset) for meta-analysis. iii) A visualisation tool has been developed that allows users to filter the UCB database based on the building location, cooling strategy, and program. The tool gives users immediate feedback, visualizing the results based on the input parameters and filters. In addition to the graphical interface, there is a data table that indicates the sources of the data and the mean values of the basic physical and survey responses for each city that is included. iv) International on-line residential survey developed, covering household clothing, activities, air motion practices, locations, solar influences, thermal environment and occupant thermal comfort. We intend to make this available to the community in the future. v) Validated coupled model - Research was carried out to test and validate the only existing real-time coupled model of human thermal comfort by comparing simulation results and measured data for a number of different realistic non-uniform scenarios. . The initial results highlighted that this coupled model can effectively predict human thermal comfort in non-uniform environments, being able to represent dynamic conditions around the body in real time. vi) CFD 3D transient model - Initial research suggested that the coupled model is able to predict human thermal comfort in any given indoor configuration, as long as the environment around the human body such as the air movement generated by a desktop fan is accurately modelled. Further research was conducted to develop and validate a CFD 3D transient model of a typical Indian ceiling fan, which has then been used within the coupled system to assess the effects of ceiling fans on thermal comfort in relationship to the position of the occupants. vii) The likely effect on energy consumption of a region of India, by use of higher air motion to offset air conditioning. viii) The project has produced outputs that can contribute to the shaping of recommendations for the future on-going development of standards (eg via ASHRAE, CIBSE, IBPSA and ISO Standards, organisations where the investigators have involvement) |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| Description | Invited Workshop in Chongqing, China, 31 Oct-2 Nov 2014 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | The workshop identified the key challenges involved in refurbishment of Chongqing's high rise apartment blocks, together with the research directions needed to respond to those challenges. These are contained in a forthcoming report from the workshop, which will be used to construct collaborative research bids, supported by UK/Chinese funding sources. The report being produced is being forwarded to the Chinese Government for their information and awareness. Refurbishment of buildings aligns directly with China's 12th Five Year Plan (2011-2015) which seeks to reduce energy consumption per unit of GDP by 16% below 2010 levels. The principles for energy efficiency refurbishment identified (and in future to be validated) for the case of Chongqing are expected to also provide guidance for other regions of China. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Project CALEBRE's* recommendations for the forthcoming Green Deal policy |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Submitted in response to the Energy Bill Committee's written call for evidence June 2011. Project CALEBRE's input will have contributed to the shaping of energy policy. Whilst it is not possible to pinpoint direct outcomes arising specifically from our input, future policy will have been developed with our input forming part of the background made available to Government. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| Description | RA Eng report: 'Heat: Degrees of Comfort? Options for heating homes in a low carbon economy' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Text Contribution about the CALEBRE Project to the above report produced by the Royal Academy of Engineering. The RAEng report prompted thinking and awareness of the issues. The report will have raised the profile of the need for low carbon domestic heating in the UK, and is available to help inform future policy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
| URL | http://www.raeng.org.uk/heat |