The Division of Building Technology brings together knowledge from Building Physics Modelling, Building Materials, Infrastructure Physics and Sustainable Building.
The building industry represents one of the largest and most important enterprises in the world. Costs associated with housing are the largest expenditure of an average family. One third of the Swedish energy consumption is used in residential and commercial buildings.
Both in Sweden and internationally there is a growing demand for practical, sustainable building designs that will provide a higher standard of living with minimal resource demand. These issues are dealt with in the research groups at Building Technology.
Research
The research at Building Technology is divided into four research groups: Building Physics Modelling, Building Materials, Infrastructure Physics and Sustainable Building. All research groups aim at contributing to a more resource efficient society and to a better environment, with focus as described below.
Building Physics Modelling
Research group Building physics modelling aims at generating new knowledge leading to resource efficient buildings with good indoor environment. This is achieved by developing and combining measurements with numerical simulations in order to model and predict the function of whole buildings and components with respect to heat, air and moisture transport and storage. The knowledge is to be used by designers, decision makers, research community and students.
Building Materials
The research group Building Materials deals primarily with durability and with transport processes of cement and wood based materials, including coatings on such materials. In addition, the properties of new green (more environmental friendly) cement and concrete materials are studied. The Building Materials group is active in following research areas:
- The resistance of concrete to chemicals, to chloride intrusion, to frost and to corrosion of reinforcement.
- Development of new methods for protection of reinforcement in concrete.
- Aging of cement based materials used for nuclear waste storage.
- Development of new green binders for future buildings.
Infrastructure Physics
The research group Infrastructure Physics deals with the impact of outdoor climate on short- and long-term performance of physical infrastructure i.e. transport infrastructure, district heating networks, cables and pipelines for water and sewers. Field measurements, laboratory measurements and theoretical modelling are the methods that is used to assess the performance of infrastructures.
Sustainable Building
The research group Sustainable Building works with concepts, tools and strategies to enhance the sustainability performance of construction materials, building products, buildings as well as entire cities. The research is related to ecological and economic life cycle assessment of construction materials, buildings and infrastructures, sustainability assessment tools for buildings, social-cultural and climate adapted design concepts as well as energy and material resource based building stock modeling and its visualization. We actively cooperate with small and medium enterprises (SME), globally leading industries, different level of public authorities and renowned research institutes in all fields mentioned. Research funds stem from business funding over grants from the European Commission (7. Research framework, INTERREG NEW, Climate-KIC) to very competitive money from national research councils.
Education
At the division, we primarily teach building technology to future civil engineers, construction engineers, architects and masters within the program Structural Engineering and Building Technology.
Programs:
- Samhällsbyggnadsteknik civilingenjör
- Samhällsbyggnadsteknik högskoleingenjör
- Affärsutveckling och entreprenörskap inom byggteknik
- Arkitektur och teknik
- Arkitekturprogrammet
Master's programs:
- Structural Engineering and Building Technology
- Design for Sustainable Development.
