Duration: 01.01.2023 - 31.12.2024

Funder: DAAD, Programm Project-related personal exchange with Brazil

Funded junior researchers

 Dr. Sarith Subramanian, Dr.-Ing. Katharina Boudier, M.Sc. Stefan Spies, M.Sc. Margarita Alwalidi

Partner university in Brazil: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) Florianópolis - Prof. Ana Paula Melo

Short Description

Buildings account for about 40% of primary energy consumption in developed countries and about 30% of primary energy consumption in developing countries. The energy requirements of buildings are closely related to comfort and user behavior. These topics are to be examined in the project. In addition, the changes in the global macro-climate and the urban micro-climate are becoming increasingly clear and will have to be increasingly taken into account in future research.

The project aims to assess resilience and energy efficiency in buildings from the perspective of climate change. In particular, user behavior and thermal and visual comfort are examined. The main research goals of this project are:

- Collection of data using a controlled test environment in climate chambers and living labs simulating expected future weather conditions (e.g. heat waves) to understand human behavior and adaptation to them.

- Development of a thermal comfort and occupant behavior database based on the collected data and development of a reliable and robust model to represent human adaptation and thermal comfort in building simulations.

- Characterization and analysis of weather data sets for thermal building simulation analysis considering future weather conditions such as heat waves.

- Development of dynamic energy benchmarking models of buildings for future weather conditions, taking user behavior into account.

- Investigation of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to adequately represent the resilience and energy efficiency of buildings.

In addition to the actual research and academic goals, young scientists in particular should be given the opportunity to initiate international contacts and cooperation that will help them to gain visibility in the international research community.