BFRL Program

Healthy and Sustainable Buildings

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Component Projects

 

The objective of the Healthy and Sustainable buildings program is to make available measurement methods, test methods, fundamental data, simulation models, and life cycle environmental and economic analysis tools to support healthy buildings and the wide-spread use of sustainability in design, construction, and operation of buildings and their systems/subsystems.

 

Intended Outcome and Background

Global climate change is considered by many as one of the most pressing challenges of the 21^st century. Scientific opinion on this matter varies significantly, from the view that contributions to global warming are negligible, to the view that man-made carbon emissions are a disaster in progress, requiring immediate substantial reductions in the emission of the so-called greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide. 

The purpose of the International Climate Change Conference, held in Kyoto, Japan in 1997, was to accelerate the pace of international action on Climate Change. If adopted by the U.S., the legally binding international protocol would translate for the U.S., into a 7% reduction in 1990 levels of carbon emissions by 2010. The U.S. building sector shares almost equally with the industrial sector and transportation sector in such emissions.

Beyond regulated carbon emissions, the “green movement” is sweeping the building industry. All major building product companies, building designers, and building operators need measurement methods, test methods, fundamental data, and life cycle environmental and economic analysis tools to objectively promote their approaches and products to achieve sustainability.  

BFRL will apply its expertise in refrigeration systems, thermal insulation, building integrated photovoltaic systems, indoor air quality, and life cycle economic and environmental analysis methods to promote healthy and sustainable residential and commercial buildings. 

BFRL’s research on Healthy and Sustainable Buildings will produce a wide range of data, measurement methods, test methods, simulation models, and analysis tools that will assist the U.S. in this “transition towards sustainability”.  These BFRL “products” include:  

 · Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability (BEES);

· performance data on refrigerant/lubricant heat transfer;

· artificial intelligence-aided design procedures for refrigeration heat exchangers;

· new apparatuses/test methods/standard materials for advanced thermal insulation/low temperature insulation/high temperature insulation;

· validated design models for building integrated photovoltaic systems;

· a new seasonal performance testing and rating methodology for residential fuel cells;

· contaminant-based design procedures for predicting indoor air quality;

· methods to evaluate and predict the performance of residential ventilation and indoor air quality control approaches, including the use of different types of air cleaning devices; and

· new/revised test methods and rating procedures for evaluating the energy performance of residential and commercial appliances and products.

 

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