This past week, four researchers from the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities (CGBC) attended the 2023 American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Winter Conference in Atlanta, GA.

The ASHRAE Winter Conference, which took place from February 4-8, 2023, is a conference for those interested in creating a sustainable built environment through sciences of heating, ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration, and related fields. The five-day event featured eight conference tracks, covering areas such as “Pathways to Zero Energy Emissions and Decarbonization” and “HVAC&R Systems and Equipment,” as well as several paper sessions, forums, debates, panels, seminars, and workshops.

Sunghwan Lim, a PhD candidate in Architecture, concentrating in Architectural Technology at Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, won the top student paper (Doctoral Level) presented at the Conference. He presented his work, “Controlling wind pressure around buildings: Using automated multi-angle ventilation louvers for higher natural ventilation potential.”

“I was really surprised to receive this honorable award. This was my first time participating at the ASHRAE conference, and I really enjoyed meeting new people and sharing my work,” said Lim upon his return to the Center. Lim’s work focuses on achieving higher natural ventilation potential through automated, multi-angle ventilation louvers. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were used to evaluate the effectiveness of controlling wind pressure around a window opening according to the changing wind direction and velocity.

Elence Xinzhu Chen, a DDes candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Xu Han, Research Associate at the CGBC, also presented their paper, “Ensembled Deep Learning-based Model Predictive Control for Automatic Window Operations in Winter.” Xiaoshi Wang, a PhD candidate in the Harvard PhD of Architecture program, and Xu Han spoke about their work, “Physics-Informed Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) for Fast Prediction of High-Resolution Indoor Air Flow Field.” Both papers will soon be published and available for viewing.

As the researchers return to the Center and continue with their experimentation, they reflect on the importance of this conference experience and look forward to what is to come.

“Going forward, I hope to expand upon the work I presented and develop an optimized control algorithm to enhance natural ventilation in buildings,” said Lim. “I also hope to continue collaborating with others at the Center and build on our current research.”

Learn more about the 2023 ASHRAE Winter Conference, and visit our Research page to find out more about the Center’s work.