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Engineering Laboratory

Building Energy & Environment Division

The Building Energy & Environment Division enables cost-effective, energy-efficient, grid-integrated buildings that have healthy and comfortable indoor environments through advances in measurement science and standards development.

Through extensive publications and active participation in consensus organizations such as ASHRAE, ASTM, ICC, IAPMO and others, research results from the Division are disseminated to the private sector in a timely manner and provide the basis for many consensus standards used throughout the building industry.

News and Updates

AI for Building Systems Innovation (AIBSI) Program

AI for Building Systems Innovation (AIBSI) Program

Ongoing
Objective To develop and deploy advances in measurement science that will improve building operations to ensure cyber-secure facilities, system reliability, occupant comfort/safety and lower operating costs through AI-enabled building systems. What is the problem? Buildings are complex systems of...

AI-Optimized Building Controls

Ongoing
Objective Demonstrate the feasibility of practical AI control techniques for reducing the energy costs of operating HVAC systems in commercial buildings and create a research infrastructure, the Intelligent Building Agents Laboratory (IBAL) and Virtual Cybernetic Building Testbed (VCBT), suitable...
Diagram of Building Digitization and Semantic Interoperability with photos of lab and models

Building Digitization and Semantic Interoperability

Ongoing
Objective To develop the framework and tools for building and grid digitization and semantic interoperability, and to create standardized machine-readable semantic models that represent building systems information to advance AI-enabled analytics, automation, and control. Technical Idea NIST will...
Diagram for Cybersecurity for Building Systems with digital building, Cyber WG and digital Twins data feeds.

Cybersecurity for Building Systems

Ongoing
Objective Develop the building services cybersecurity application profiles and guidance needed by building owners, designers, manufacturers and others involved in the lifecycle of the building, to understand threats, risks, countermeasures and governance approach and to ensure cyber-secure...
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Net-Zero Energy, High-Performance Buildings

Illustrated cutaway showing the inside of the Net Zero Energy House

Measurement Science for Building Systems Program

Ongoing
Objective To develop and deploy advances in measurement science to support the design and operation of high-performance building systems capable of better supporting resiliency, grid-reliability/stability, and affordability while maintaining a healthy, safe indoor environment. What is the problem...
NIST researcher setting up air cleaner experiments in large stainless steel environmental chamber

Indoor Contaminants

Ongoing
Objective To provide the measurement science to lead the development of industry-consensus standards and guides to optimize buildings and operate products relevant to the indoor environment and indoor air quality in an efficient and safe manner. Technical Idea This project seeks to provide the...
Hot Water Systems (HWS) Lab

Premise Plumbing Systems for High-Performance Buildings

Ongoing
Objective To develop new measurement methods, modeling approaches, and data to support improvements in building plumbing design, utility consumption, and water quality. Technical Idea The technical idea is to advance understanding of the impacts water use and water-related energy use on its delivery...
L researcher Steven Emmerich adjusts a multi-gas analyzer that will measure carbon monoxide, oxygen, carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons concentrations produced by such a generator located, against safety advice, in a garage.

Ventilation and Indoor Air Quality in High-Performance Buildings

Ongoing
Objective To develop and test tools to quantify and verify high-performance IAQ in high-performance buildings, and to support the development and improvement of industry-consensus building standards, guidelines, and programs related to IAQ and ventilation. Technical Idea The technical idea is to...
Figure - Suite of E3 Related Tools and Resources

Life Cycle Systems Science for Buildings

Ongoing
Objective To develop and deploy transparent, open source standards-based data and tools that quantify the life-cycle performance of building technologies and systems through parallel activities focused on developing, releasing, and expanding capabilities and adoption of: (1) the Economic Evaluation...
JHPGL Chamber

Flammability Metrics for Next Generation Refrigerants

Ongoing
Objective To develop the capability to measure and predict the flammability of next generation refrigerants to (1) allow the ranking of mixtures in terms of their flammability, (2) assist in selection and implementation of the best replacements for legacy hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants, (3)...
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Software

ACSIM

ACSIM is a simulation tool for single-stage air conditioning systems. It models systems comprising a compressor, finned-tube evaporator and condenser

The NIST Data Alignment Tool

The Data Alignment Tool (DAT) was built to assist with the analysis of data used in testing fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) tools and building

Awards

Contacts

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