PDEng trainee: decision-support for HVAC and indoor climate of archive buildings

Smart Buildings & Cities PDEng program

The Smart Buildings & Cities PDEng program wants to contribute to the transition towards smart, intelligent and sustainable cities where quality of life is high. This transition requires new solutions which can only be created through multiscale and transdisciplinary (design) approaches. This requires technical designers who are able to work in a multidisciplinary environment and know how to communicate with different disciplines and stake holders. This PDEng program educates trainees to become those technical designers! Please note that this program is about technological design, i.e., the process of solving problems by means of a technological design, this in contrast to (PhD) research, which is the process of understanding problems.

The Department of the Built Environment of the Eindhoven University of Technology offers you a trainee position to follow a two-year post-master technological designer program, which leads to the degree of 'Professional Doctorate in Engineering' (PDEng). The program consists of two main parts running in parallel:

- Half of the program consists of post-master level education in the form of generic design projects and courses about design methods, entrepreneurship and professional skills. Furthermore, it includes several technical courses about topics relevant to SBC. This part of the program also offers ample opportunity to develop professional skills.

- The other half of the program is dedicated to an individual design project in collaboration with a company. It is the trainees main responsibility to manage and execute the project. Each trainee is supported by an advisor from the company and an advisor from the university. A business plan for implementation or marketing of the designed product or process is part of the final deliverables.

The company design project will be carried out in collaboration with the National Archives of the Netherlands, and concerns the development of a decision support tool that can be used to increase sustainability of archive buildings. The envisioned tool will facilitate a better understanding of the dynamic interactions between the indoor environment, collection (e.g. paper, books, paintings), building characteristics and HVAC systems & controls. In this context, the word sustainability therefore refers to both the responsible use of energy as well as to the durable conservation of cultural heritage.

The project will combine hygrothermal simulations (building fabric and HVAC) with degradation models to uncover the governing interrelationships. Sensitivity and uncertainty analysis will be used to concrete in the most important parameters. The final deliverable of the project is a user-friendly tool that can be used by a variety of stakeholders in the field.

The PDEng trainee will be embedded in the Building Performance group - www.tue.nl/buildingperformance

For questions about the project contact dr.ir. Roel Loonen (r.c.g.m.loonen[at]tue.nl)

We are looking for an excellent and highly motivated candidate with:

• a MSc degree in Architectural Engineering, Building Science, Building, Civil, Mechanical or Environmental Engineering, or equivalent
• an interest in physical processes (heat, air and moisture transfer) in the built environment, sustainable energy technologies, design support tools and computational building performance simulation
• an academic attitude in order to develop new technologies and perform applied research with an integral view on what is needed for the future built environment
• an excellent command of the English language, both in speaking and writing