PhD position: “Bridging building energy and urban microclimate

The urban microclimate results from many interacting complex processes, including wind-driven flows, thermally-driven flows, solar gains, humidity and evaporation. These can be modelled using Computational Fluid Dynamics and other detailed approaches. Building energy use depends on boundary conditions imposed by the local microclimate, for example outdoor air temperatures and local wind speeds. However, such effects are largely ignored in building energy simulations due to their complex nature and difficulty in modelling.

This project will conduct advanced sensitivity analysis on both the microclimate and building energy sides of the problem, and combine them to derive the impact of the microclimate on building energy use. Based on these results, where appropriate the statistical technique of Baysian emulation will be used to fit approximate models to detailed CFD results, and the fitted model will be incorporated into building energy simulations. This follows from a proof-of-principle publication “Emulating site-specific wind flow information  for use in building energy simulations”.

Microclimate information will be considered in relation to fabric losses, natural ventilation and building systems. Tasks will include conducting CFD simulations (primarily in OpenFOAM), conducting building energy simulations (primarily in EnergyPlus), automating the process of sensitivity analysis, and deriving meaningful information from the results of such analysis.