About Us +
Researchers in the Building Technology & Urban Systems Division (BTUS) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory develop data and technologies that increase energy efficiency and improve the health, safety and comfort of building occupants, in the United States and worldwide.

We work closely with industry partners, academics and government officials to achieve these goals, and share our research widely
Research +
We are at the forefront of cutting-edge research that redefines building technology and explores all areas of urban systems.

We have been leaders for decades in developing energy-efficient windows, improving indoor air quality, coming up with new ideas to fix the nation's electricity grid, and so much more.

Visit our research areas at the right to find out more.
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Publications +
Enjoy presentations from Building Technology & Urban systems research experts on a wide variety of topics in the areas of building energy efficiency, the electricity grid and how it relates to buildings and much more.
- Presentations
News
Tools & Guides +
Explore our tools, guidebooks and software and download for free.

We offer a variety of technologies designed to simulate and model real-world circumstances to assist in energy-saving programs and help building owners build better buildings. These tools can help calculate performance of building systems like windows and shades, help consumers and builders pick the best windows for a variety of applications and much more.

Publications

Publications By Research Area

2010

Victor, Norrefeldt, Thierry Stephane Nouidui, and Gunnar Gruen."Development of an isothermal 2D zonal air volume model with impulse conservation."Clima 2010, 10th Rehva World Congress "Sustainable Energy Use in Buildings" (2010).

Raferty, Paul, Marcus Keane, James O'Donnell, and Andrea Costa."Energy Monitoring Systems value, issues and recommendations based on five case studies."Clima 2010 conference (2010).

Zuo, Wangda, and Qingyan Chen."Fast and informative flow simulation in a building by using fast fluid dynamics model on graphics processing unit."Building and Environment 45.3 (2010) 747-757.

Zuo, Wangda, and Qingyan Chen."Fast simulation of smoke transport in buildings."the 41st International HVAC&R congress (2010).

Hu, Jianjun, Wangda Zuo, and Qingyan Chen."Impact of time-splitting schemes on the accuracy of FFD simulations."the 7th International Indoor Air Quality, Ventilation and Energy Conservation in Buildings Conference (IAQVEC 2010) (2010) 55-60.

Liu, Mingsheng, Jingjuan Feng, Zhan Wang, Keke Zheng, and Xiufeng Pang."Impacts of Static Pressure Reset on VAV System Air Leakage, Fan Power, and Thermal Energy."ASHRAE Transactions 116.1 (2010) 428-436.

Zuo, Wangda, Jianjun Hu, and Qingyan Chen."Improvements on FFD modeling by using different numerical schemes."Numerical Heat Transfer, Part B Fundamentals 58.1 (2010) 1-16.

Zuo, Wangda, and Qingyan Chen."Improvements on the fast fluid dynamics model for indoor airflow simulation."the 4th National Conference of IBPSA-USA (SimBuild2010) (2010) 539-546.

Najafi, Massieh, David M Auslander, Peter L Bartlett, Philip Haves, and Michael D Sohn."Modeling and Measurement Constraints in Fault Diagnostics for HVAC Systems."ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Controls (2010).

Zuo, Wangda, and Qingyan Chen."Simulations of air distribution in buildings by FFD on GPU."HVAC&R Research 16.6 (2010) 783-796.

Narayanan, Satish, Michael G Apte, Philip Haves, Mary Ann Piette, and John Elliott."Systems Approach to Energy Efficient Building Operation: Case Studies and Lessons Learned in a University Campus."2010 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings (2010).

2009

Wang, Liping, Julie Gwilliam, and Phillip Jones."Case study of zero energy house design in UK."Energy and Buildings 41.11 (2009) 1215-1222.

Hong, Tianzhen, Stephen E Selkowitz, and Mehry Yazdanian."Assessment of Energy Impact of Window Technologies for Commercial Buildings." (2009).

Nelson, Dean, Brian Day, Geoffrey C Bell, Prajesh Bhattacharya, and Mike Ryan."“The Monitoring,” Panel: Chill-Off."Silicon Valley Leadership Group Data Center Energy Efficiency Summit (2009).

Wetter, Michael."Modelica Library for Building Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning Systems."Proceedings of the 7th International Modelica Conference 43 (2009). DOI

Franke, Rüdiger, Francesco Casella, Martin Otter, Katrin Proelss, Michael Sielemann, and Michael Wetter."Standardization of thermo-fluid modeling in Modelica.Fluid 1.0."Proceedings of the 7th International Modelica Conference 43 (2009). DOI

Wetter, Michael."A Modelica-based model library for building energy and control systems."Proceedings of the 11th IBPSA Conference (2009) 652-659.

Trcka, Marija, Michael Wetter, and Jan Hensen."An implementation of co-simulation for performance prediction of innovative integrated HVAC systems in buildings."Proceedings of the 11th IBPSA Conference (2009) 724-731.

Kumar, V, Bettina Frohnapfel, Jovan Jovanović, Michael Breuer, Wangda Zuo, Ibrahim Hadzić, and Richard Lechner."Anisotropy invariant Reynolds stress model of turbulence (AIRSM) and its application on attached and separated wall-bounded flows."Flow, Turbulence and Combustion 83.1 (2009) 81-103. DOI

Cho, Young-Hum, Mingsheng Liu, and Xiufeng Pang."Improving Control and Operation of a Single Duct VAV System through CCLEP."ASHRAE Transactions 115.2 (2009) 760-768.

Hong, Tianzhen."A close look at the China design standard for energy efficiency of public buildings."Energy and Buildings 41.4 (2009) 426-435. DOI

Liu, Xiaobing, and Tianzhen Hong."Comparison of energy efficiency between variable refrigerant flow systems and ground source heat pump systems."Energy and Buildings 42.5 (2009) 584-589. DOI

Wang, Liping, and Nyuk Hien Wong."Coupled simulations for naturally ventilated rooms between building simulation (BS) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for better prediction of indoor thermal environment."Building and Environment 44.1 (2009) 95-112.

Shen, Eric, and Tianzhen Hong."Simulation-based assessment of the energy savings benefits of integrated control in office buildings."Building Simulation 2.4 (2009) 239-251. DOI

Xu, Tengfang T, Chuang Wang, Tianzhen Hong, and Mark D Levine."Technical Assistance to Beichuan Reconstruction: Creating and Designing Low- to Zero-carbon Communities in New Beichuan." (2009).