Creating Opportunities for Adaptation Based on PULSE (Population in Urban Landscape for Sustainable Built Environment)

The objective of this National Science Foundation (NSF) project is to develop an urban simulation platform. The project is a collaboration with Penn State and the Harvard School of Public Health.

The objective of this EFRI-SEED project is to develop an urban simulation platform in order to identify and test opportunities for: (1) urban dwellers to better adapt to indoor and outdoor environmental conditions and (2) the aging building infrastructure to better adapt to changing environmental conditions and new building energy performance requirements. The project will include multi-scale modeling with overall system boundaries spanning across a whole urban neighborhood to capture the combined effect of multiple buildings on energy flows for cooling/heating/lighting, while maintaining a model resolution small enough to simulate these effects based on first principles (conservation laws directly applied to multiple scales). The energy flow modeling efforts will be coupled with research outcomes on occupant comfort and health ranging from mucosal irritation and lower respiratory symptoms to occupant alertness. The main campuses at Penn State and Harvard will serve as case studies for this project helping the project team to develop urban design performance metrics related to building energy use and occupant satisfaction with the urban environment. These metrics will support the development of improved building energy control strategies by taking full benefits of sun, wind and rain at the neighborhood scale, as well as, accounting for inputs from occupants. All of the software developed including interfaces will be available in open software architecture. The PIs plan to enable a community infrastructure, where researchers can provide vital input into the Virtual PULSE model, for improved neighborhood simulations and data collection.

This research team plans to make contributions that could potentially help address one of the Grand Challenges for Engineering defined by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) as Restore and Improve Urban Infrastructure. Also, the urban infrastructure is the main focus of recently approved LEED for Neighborhood Development Rating System: LEED-ND, which will be represented in our project from a quantitative analysis perspective. Simulation tools and techniques developed in this proposal will provide a framework to integrate architects and engineers for solving complex coupled problems in a novel way to decrease building energy consumption and environmental impacts. Policy makers will have access to quantitative data to improve assessment of energy demands in urban environments. Such capacity can provide a fundamental framework for responsible energy policy and growth of urban settlements that meet the long-tem national goal set in The Obama-Biden Comprehensive New Energy for America Plan. The work will provide better understanding of environmental stressors that can lead to systemic population health problems. The project results will provide policy makers with baseline information necessary to upgrade urban infrastructure for improved population health. Direct dissemination of Virtual PULSE simulation tool will be aimed for the industry and research community, while special materials will be developed for undergraduate/graduate students and campus communities. The educational dissemination initiatives are named "Urban Environment" modules. These modules represent a series of hands-on lectures and exercises to be based on the data collected in this project.