WANTED: Creative, data-oriented, sustainability-minded Mechanical Engineering MEng Student for Energy Efficiency Research MEng Project.
Faculty supervisors: Prof Al George (MAE, SYSEN) and Prof Howard Chong (Environmental
Economics), work supported by the Atkinson Center for Sustainable Future
Skills needed:
1) Familiarity with energy modeling or heat transfer
2) Data-analysis skills
3) Interest in energy efficiency and sustainability.
List of related classes: Heat Transfer
DESCRIPTION:
Current residential energy modeling is primarily based on simulated data; essentially how much heat is lost from a house in the winter time. The weakness is that it is never measured. In this project, we gather 200+ temperature data series from houses. Your challenge is to help make sense of the data and what information can be derived from that.
On the most basic level, you get indoor and outdoor temperature readings and estimate basic thermal characteristics (e.g., the exponential decay time constant, see http://tinyurl.com/ChongLBL ). For the 200 houses, you’d estimate a “leakiness” parameter for each and rank them in terms of leakiness. Sounds easy, but this is complicated by effective mass of the house, varying wind, solar exposure, and occupant behavior—essentially all the issues of using real data.
Once the basic level of analysis is completed, you can do more complex analysis. You have freedom to explore a question you come up with. As one example, some houses may have 1-4 sensors in different rooms, permitting analysis of temperature coupling/interior thermal flows. As another example, it might even be possible to infer the impact of solar gain or wind from the temperature data. Lastly, the data could be used to do fault analysis for homes. Whatever you choose, there is scope to do interesting things.
In terms of vision, this project is large. “Big Data” analytics with cheap sensors can solve some persistent problems in how energy efficiency works. The potential scope is $18Billion per year in energy savings. It has large implications for science and energy policy.
DETAILS
Two term project (Fall2015+Spring2016) with more work in Spring 2016. Some funding available between terms and in summer.
To apply, please send a “cover letter” with your interest via email to Al George (arg2@cornell.edu ) and Erica Anderson (ejs73@cornell.edu), Subject: MEng Project – Temperature Data.