COVID-19, the transition to net zero carbon, residential retrofit and thermal comfort inform this years award winning technical papers, as featured in Building Services Engineering Research & Technology Journal (BSER&T).
The Dufton Silver and Napier Shaw Bronze Medals are awarded for papers relating to fundamental research. The Barker Silver and Carter Bronze Medals are awarded to papers on application of research in practice. The winning papers are selected based on international interest and significance.
With performance in mind, the Dufton Silver Medal for research was awarded to Daniel Fosas, Elli Nikolaidou, Matthew Roberts, Stephen Allen, Ian Walker, and David Coley, entitled Towards active buildings: Rating grid-servicing buildings.
It describes a proposal for an Active Building Code which assesses how a building provides building-integrated generation and grid services and minimises energy use and embodied carbon. It is also a highly topical paper given the current energy supply situation.
The Napier Shaw Bronze Medal for Research was awarded to David Swinarski, for his paper, Modelling elevator traffic with social distancing in a university classroom building. David developed a simulation tool to assess the impact of various interventions on traffic carrying capacity of lift groups during the COVID-19 pandemic, when occupancy of lifts was curtailed as a means to reduce transmission risks.
Joseph Lingard was awarded the Barker Silver Medal for application and development for his paper, Residential retrofit in the UK: The optimum retrofit measures necessary for effective heat pump use has also been recognised. This paper focuses on the high dependency on the electrification of heat and use of heat pump systems to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, as outlined by The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and the Committee on Climate Change. This study describes dynamic simulation modelling to determine the optimum energy efficient retrofit required to minimise energy use and electrical demand for the installation of a heat pump an average semi-detached dwelling.
The Carter Bronze Medal for application and development was awarded to the paper Evaluating the perception of thermal environment in naturally ventilated schools in a warm and humid climate in Nigeria by Yingchun Ji and Charles Munonye. Their paper looked at a naturally ventilated primary school in a warm, humid environment, in Nigeria, to determine the thermal comfort perception of young children and to understand the thermal conditions in the classrooms.
The awards will be presented at the CIBSE President’s Awards dinner in October.
CIBSE members can read the BSER&T Journal and Lighting Research and Technology (LR&T) Journal as part of their membership at https://go.cibse.org/CIBSETechnicalPapers-PR