Development of novel energy-efficient integrated systems for building operation optimization (Application Ref: SF19/EE/ABE/Zingre)

The climate change and the rising living standard have significantly increased the electricity consumption by the building sector worldwide from 26% in 1980 to 54% in 2010, and predicted to further increase at alarming rate to 84% in 2050 (Zingre et al., 2017). Therefore, the research on developing energy-efficient building systems in order to reduce the building energy consumption has recently garnered enormous importance. In buildings, a significant portion of electricity is consumed by i) heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems for achieving desirable indoor thermal comfort, ii) lighting systems for achieving desirable illuminance level and iii) other systems including plug loads, appliances, etc. Energy-efficient buildings would lead to considerable improvement in electricity savings leading to reduction in building-related CO2 emission into the environment. It is hypothesised that the building energy savings could be achieved by i) designing energy-efficient building systems, ii) electricity generation (through waste heat-recovery and photovoltaic panels), and iii) integration of building systems for building operation optimization. However the current state-of-the-art lacks applicability to integrated building systems and therefore there is utmost need to perform research on developing novel energy-efficient integrated building systems for building operation optimization and analytics. This research will involve literature review of the existing studies, computational modelling and experimental measurements of building material properties, indoor parameters (air temperature and humidity) and electricity consumption in real-buildings.

The research carried out will shed new insights into advancement of scientific knowledge of developing energy-efficient buildings by exploring various aspects of designing, integration and optimization of building systems. Following are the main activities of this research work:

 Building energy and information modelling and simulations
 Designing novel control systems for HVAC, envelope and daylighting
 Integration and optimization of various building systems.

This project is supervised by Dr. Kishor T. Zingre

Please note eligibility requirement:
• Academic excellence of the proposed student i.e. 2:1 (or equivalent GPA from non-UK universities [preference for 1st class honours]); or a Masters (preference for Merit or above); or APEL evidence of substantial practitioner achievement.
• Appropriate IELTS score, if required.

For further details of how to apply, entry requirements and the application form, see
https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/research/postgraduate-research-degrees/how-to-apply/

Please note: Applications that do not include a research proposal of approximately 1,000 words (not a copy of the advert), or that do not include the advert reference (e.g SF19/EE/ABE/Zingre) will not be considered.

Start Date: 1 March 2020 or 1 October 2020

Northumbria University takes pride in, and values, the quality and diversity of our staff. We welcome applications from all members of the community. The University holds an Athena SWAN Bronze award in recognition of our commitment to improving employment practices for the advancement of gender equality and is a member of the Euraxess network, which delivers information and support to professional researchers.