International. 
Engineers will take a look at the use of energy in the building envelope in a project funded through an undergraduate project guaranteed by ASHRAE.
This year, 24 schools around the world were subsidized. The grants, worth about $110,000, are awarded by ASHRAE to colleges and universities around the world to promote the study and teaching of HVAC/R, encouraging undergraduate students to pursue related careers.
The grants are used in design and construction projects, such as the University of Alabama's proposal to use an unmanned aerial vehicle to document energy audits of buildings. The project notes that while building audits are a key process in determining building efficiency, performance and failures, audits require knowledge of the building's interior, energy system and exterior envelope, which can be challenging.
"The vehicle could be used to quantify the hard-to-reach envelope characteristics and large parts of modern buildings," said Zheng O'Neill, Ph.D., of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and project advisor. "The information will provide engineers with systematically measured volume control features. For example, data from an infrared thermal camera will provide information on the temperature of the building envelope, which can be used to diagnose infiltration into the building."
She will work with Charles O'Neill of Aerospace Engineering and the Department of Mechanics for vehicle development and test flights.
The goal of the project is to build a co-robot (human-controlled with robotic assistance) cuadcopter with onboard sensors including infrared camera, visible light camera, heat flow sensors, direct temperature measurement tips and orientation and location.
