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

2006

Prasher, Ravi S, Prajesh Bhattacharya, and Patrick E Phelan."Brownian Motion Based Convective- Conductive Model for the Effective Thermal Conductivity of Nanofluids."Journal of Heat Transfer 128 (2006) 588-595.

Xu, Peng, and Philip Haves."Case Study of Demand Shifting with Thermal Mass in Two Large Commercial Buildings."ASHRAE Transactions 112.Pt. 1 (2006).

Kosar, Douglas, Don Shirey, Mangesh Basarkar, Muthasamy Swami, and Richard Raustad."Dehumidification Enhancement of Direct Expansion Systems through Component Augmentation of the Cooling Coil."Fifteenth Symposium on Improving Building Systems in Hot and Humid Climates, July 24-26, 2006 (2006).

Prasher, Ravi S, Prajesh Bhattacharya, and Patrick E Phelan."Effect of Aggregation Kinetics on the Thermal Conductivity of Nanoscale Colloidal Solutions (Nanofluids)."Nanoletters 6 (2006) 1529-1534.

Nytsch-Geusen, Christoph, Andre Nordwig, Mathias Vetter, Christoph Wittwer, Thierry Stephane Nouidui, and Peter Schneider."MOSILAB: Ein Modelica-Simulationswerkzeug zur energetischen Gebäude- und Anlagensimulation."16. Symposium Thermische Solarenergie (2006).

Polak, Elijah, and Michael Wetter."Precision control for generalized pattern search algorithms with adaptive precision function evaluations."SIAM Journal on Optimization 16.3 (2006) 650-669 . DOI

Nouidui, Thierry Stephane, Christoph Nytsch-Geusen, and Andreas Holm."Validierung der eindimensionalen hygrothermischen Wandmodelle der Modelica-Bibliothek "BuildingPhysicsLibrary"."BauSIM 2006 (2006) pp.144-146.

2005

Bhattacharya, Prajesh, Patrick E Phelan, and Ravi S Prasher."Computational Analysis of the Colloidal Stability of Nanofluids."International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition (2005).

Nara, S, Prajesh Bhattacharya, P Vijayan, W . Y. Lai, W Rosenthal, Patrick E Phelan, Ravi S Prasher, David W Song, and Jinlin Wang."Experimental Determination of the Effect of Varying Base Fluid and Temperature on the Static Thermal Conductivity of Nanofluids."ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, November 5-11, 2005 (2005). DOI

Morrissey, Elmer, Marcus Keane, James O'Donnell, and John F McCarthy."Building Effectiveness Communication Ratios for Improved Building Life Cycle Management."IBPSA Building Simulation Conference 2005 (2005).

Crawley, Drury B, Jon W Hand, Michael Kummert, and Brent T Griffith."Contrasting the Capabilities of Building Energy Performance Simulation Programs."IBPSA Building Simulation 2005 (2005).

da Graça, Guilherme Carrilho, Paul F Linden, and Martha Brook."Design of the Natural Ventilation System for the New San Diego Children's Museum."IBPSA Building Simulation 2005 (2005).

Hand, Jon W, Drury B Crawley, Michael Donn, and Linda K Lawrie."Improving the Data Available to Simulation Programs."IBPSA Building Simulation 2005 (2005).

Fisher, Daniel E, and Simon J Rees."Modeling Ground Source Heat Pump Systems in a Building Energy Simulation Program (EnergyPlus)."IBPSA Building Simulation 2005 (2005).

Mehta, Mohit."Natural Ventilation Analysis of an Office Building with Open Atrium."IBPSA Building Simulation 2005 (2005).

Wurtz, Etienne, Chadi Maalouf, Laurent Mora, and Francis Allard."Parametric Analysis of a Solar Desiccant Cooling System using the SimSPARK Environment."IBPSA Building Simulation 2005 (2005).

O'Donnell, James, Elmer Morrissey, Marcus Keane, and Brian Ó Gallachóir."Reducing Building Operational Cost Through Environmental Effectiveness Ratios."Building Simulation 2005 IBPSA International Conference (2005).

Ellis, Peter G, and Paul A Torcellini."Simulating Tall Buildings Using EnergyPlus."IBPSA Building Simulation 2005 (2005).

O'Sullivan, Barry, and Marcus Keane."Specifiction of an IFC-Based Intelligent Graphical User Interface to Support Building Energy Simulation."IBPSA Building Simulation 2005 (2005).

Hong, Tianzhen, Charles N Eley, and Erik Kolderup."Two DOE-2 Functions."IBPSA Building Simulation 2005 (2005).

Pinckard, Margaret J, Richard E Brown, Evan Mills, James D Lutz, Mithra M Moezzi, Celina S Atkinson, Christopher A Bolduc, Gregory K Homan, and Katie Coughlin."Documentation of Calculation Methodology, Input Data, and Infrastructure for the Home Energy Saver Web Site." (2005) 108.

Vijayan, P, Prajesh Bhattacharya, S Nara, W . Y. Lai, Patrick E Phelan, Ravi S Prasher, David W Song, and J Wang."Effect of Particle Material on the Static Thermal Conductivity of Nanofluids."Heat Transfer Conference (2005).

Wong, Nyuk Hien, Liping Wang, Aida Noplie Chandra, Anupama Rana Pandey, and Xiaolin Wei."Effects of double glazed façade on energy consumption, thermal comfort and condensation for a typical office building in Singapore."Energy and Buildings 37.6 (2005).

Nytsch-Geusen, Christoph, Thierry Stephane Nouidui, Andreas Holm, and Wolfram Haupt."A hygrothermal building model based on the object-oriented modeling language Modelica."Ninth International IBPSA Conference (2005).

Pang, Xiufeng, B Zheng, and Mingsheng Liu."Building Pressure Control in VAV System with Relief Air Fan."the 5th International Conference of Enhanced Building Operations (2005).