Category: sen

Dr. Sen Huang Participates in the Architectural Engineering Department Distinguished Speaker Seminar

Nathan Kurtz on

We were very excited to welcome lab alumni Dr. Sen Huang (Prof. Zuo’s first Ph.D. student) to speak at the first seminar as part of the Architectural Engineering Department’s 2024-2025 Distinguished Speaker Seminar Series. Dr, Sen Huang is from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and recipient of the Outstanding Young Contributor Award from IBPSA World and the Emerging Contributor Award from IBPSA-USA chapter.

Dr. Sen presented his research advancements in modeling, sensors, and controls to facilitate connected communities. This was an extremely inspiring presentation to all the students who attended. He also held a student round table to give advice and information regarding career opportunities at national laboratories. We really appreciate him taking the time to come out and present to our students and give valuable insight and guidance. We look forward to future collaborations with Dr. Sen and ORNL.

Journal Article Assessing ASHRAE Guideline 36 Published

Julia Ho on

Former SBS Lab member Cary Faulkner‘s paper titled “Simulation-based assessment of ASHRAE Guideline 36 (G36), considering energy performance, indoor air quality, and control stability” has been published in the journal Building and Environment.

The paper developed a VAV system in Modelica to test the influence of G36 on occupant thermal comfort, indoor air quality, control stability, and energy efficiency for air-side and water-side equipment. They found that although G36 slightly decreases thermal comfort, it significantly reduces annual energy consumption, increases indoor air quality, and eliminates CO2 discomfort through its use of demand controlled ventilation. The paper also found that local feedback control was important to ensure control stability when using G36. This study contributes to the body

This paper was the first to 1. assess the impact of G36 on indoor air quality, 2. consider control sequence interactions in water-side and air-side equipment for the system studied, and 3. examine short-term building behavior to evaluate control stability with G36.

The co-authors of the paper are Robert Lutes, former SBS Lab member Sen Huang, Wangda Zuo, and Draguna Vrabie. You can read the paper for free here until July 15, 2023.

Grid-interactive Efficient Buildings Literature Review Published

Julia Ho on

“System modeling for grid-interactive efficient building applications,” a literature review written by Yunyang Ye*, Cary Faulkner*, Rong Xu, Sen Huang*, Yuan Liu, Draguna Vrabie and Jian Zhang, has been published in the Journal of Building Engineering. The literature review analyzes over 300 articles on modeling grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBs) with the goal of understanding best modeling practices for various applications as well as proposing future directions for the field. The authors found that the main challenges facing the GEB modeling field included the inability to consider all requirements in a single model, the inherent interdisciplinary nature of the models exposing limits in research expertise, and the lack of easily reusable system models. They suggest that future GEB modeling research studies focus on equation-based modeling, co-simulation, simulation workflow automation, and model-based co-design and machine learning to ensure that researchers take full advantage of GEB system modeling’s capabilities.

The full paper can be found for free here until April 29th.

*Current or former members of the SBS Lab.

Cary, Dr. Huang and Dr. Zuo present at the 2022 ASHRAE Annual Conference in Toronto

Yizhi Yang on
06/22: ASHRAE Annual Conference in Toronto, Canada

Dr. Wangda Zuo, lab member Cary Faulkner, and alumni Dr. Sen Huang have attended the 2022 ASHRAE Annual Conference in Toronto. ASHRAE Annual Conference aims to encourage researchers and engineers to exchange their latest findings and promote the development of the HVAC&R industry and the built environment. For more information about ASHRAE: https://www.ashrae.org/

06/22: ASHRAE Annual Conference in Toronto, Canada

SBS lab member and two alumna are recognized as library developers on Modelica Buildings Library version 4.0.0

wmz5108 on

Lab members Chengan Shi, and alumna Dr. Jing Wang and Dr. Sen Huang are recognized as library developers on LBNL’s Modelica Buildings Library, version 4.0.0. The MBL is an open-source modeling tool, which can be accessed and used by modelers wishing to employ Modelica in a building analysis setting. Click here for further information on MBL version 4.0.0.

Congrats to Chengnan, Jing, and Sen on this recognition for their hard work.