Equipment

As a part of the Department of Urban Environmental Engineering (UEE) in the Faculty of Applied Sciences (FSA), the lab members provide education and perform scientific research in the field of building physics and building technology related to building design.

The main core areas of interest are high-performance building design, facade design, structural design, climate design, and computational design, with an important focus on sustainability.

Our laboratory researches high-performance buildings, advanced facades and climate-resilient cities. With our wide range of building/urban performance simulation software, we perform computational modeling and simulation for optimizing the design and renovations of high-performance buildings and urban environments in terms of energy use, energy generation, water use, indoor environmental quality, urban climate, and life cycle assessment, meeting international, and commercial rating systems and standards. Regardless of the environment that has to be simulated, the SBD lab has a set of simulation suites.

With our wide range of building performance simulation software, we perform computational modeling and simulation for optimizing the design and renovations of high-performance buildings. Also, the laboratory is equipped with various data acquisition /logging systems for different types of temperature, humidity, airflow, turbulence, illumination intensity and carbon dioxide emissions sensors, envelope air tightness (Blower Door) and infrared camera. The lab members can monitor thermal comfort, indoor air quality, and the main influencing factors on an occupant’s sense of comfort following the international standards ISO 17772, ASHRAE 55 and CEN 16798, which combines all of the parameters in the PMV/PPD measurement.

Scorpion Workstation

The state-of-the-art workstation at the SBD Lab, ULiege, uses a processor with 64 cores, 128 threads, and a 256MB cache for computing power and performance. This is in combination with 128GB (4 x 32GB) of memory (RAM) and a graphics card of 24GB that masters most scientific applications. The workstations' main components: CPU: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X, 64 x 2.9GHz, 256MB Cache, 280W TDP, TRX40. RAM: 64GB - 2 x 32GB Kit DDR4-3200 CL16, Corsair Vengeance LPX (2 x 32GB Kit x 2 St. = 128GB) Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, 24GB.

Usability Testing Lab

SBD Lab for Usability Testing of Building Performance Simulation in the AEC Industry Design Process.

Data Loggers

The laboratory has four indoor-use temperature and humidity loggers. The indoor-use loggers can be programmed to collect and store data independently for several months or up to time steps as fine as a second. All of this equipment is portable and wired for modular expansion. We can accommodate many more instruments to measure outdoor temperature, wind, etc.

Onset HOBO U12-12, Temperature/Relative Humidity/Light/External Data Logger
Onset HOBO UX90 Occupancy/Light Logger - UX90-006
Telaire 7001 CO2 Sensor - TEL-7001
Testo 635 U-Value Measuring Instrument: Automatically calculate U-value with the humidity/temperature
FLIR i7 Thermal Imaging Cameras - FLIR Infrared Cameras
Telaire 7001 CO2 Sensor - TEL-7001
Self-powered water and energy meter for showers
MASTECH MS6300 6 IN 1 Digital Multifunction Environment Meter Temperature Humidity Sound Air Flow Meter luminometer
Wohler CDL CO2 Meter

Solar Radiation Equipment

The laboratory's solar radiation equipment can measure Direct Normal Radiation and Global Horizontal Radiation outdoors. We use the CHP1 pyrheliometer manufactured by Kipp & Zonen for direct radiation measurement. Since this kind of measurement requires tracking the sun as it moves through the sky, we use a Solys 2 tracker (also by Kipp & Zonen). To measure global horizontal irradiation, we have the SR12 and LP02 pyranometers (from Hukseflux).

Weather Station

Cambell Analytics

Davis