News

BEEE’s Associate Professor Awarded RMB 2 million from the National’s 2022 Excellent Young Scientists Fund (Hong Kong and Macau)

The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is pleased to report that our Associate Professor, Dr Wei Minchen Tommy was awarded a total amount of RMB 2 million from the National’s 2022 Excellent Young Scientists Fund (Hong Kong and Macau).   Dr Wei has been continuously conducting research on fundamental colour science, and the research outcomes have contributed to the further understanding of human visual system and mechanisms, in order to investigate and improve the quality of lighting and imaging systems. The awarded project he led, namely “Colour Appearance Model and Colour Space”, aims to investigate colour appearance and difference under complicated conditions. The research findings can be used for various imaging systems, such as cameras, displays, smartphones, tablets, drones, and metaverse-related systems, which will be of great scientific and practical importance for colour science and industry.   Under the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Excellent Young Scientists Fund (Hong Kong and Macau) aims to support young scholars (under the age of 38 for male or 40 for female) who have attained achievements in basic research and conducted innovative research in their chosen fields, fostering them to be internationally leading scholars.   The Department would like to congratulate Dr Wei on the excellent achievement. We wish them continued success.

A Research Project Led by BEEE’s Assistant Professor was Successfully Supported by Smart Traffic Fund

The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is pleased to announce that a research project led by our Assistant Professor, Dr Sunliang Cao (PI), with our Professor, Prof. Hongxing Yang, Dr Yang Xu (LSGI/FCE) and Dr Kai Pan (LMS/FB) as Co-Is, was successfully supported by the HKSAR Government’s Smart Traffic Fund during the fourth batch out of three awarded projects. Dr. Cao’s project is also the only “Pure Research Project” being supported during the fourth batch. The total funding of this research project is around HK$ 2.5 million.   The Smart Traffic Fund aims to provide competitive funding to support both “Pure Research Project” and “Research and Application Project” in the fields of smart traffic with the objectives of enhancing commuting convenience, enhancing efficiency of the road network or road space, and improving driving safety.  For more details about the Fund, please click HERE.   Dr Cao’s project is entitled “The smart charging development of zero-emission autonomous electric vehicles by the X2V and V2X technologies with respect to the dynamic traffic, grid and energy information”. The primary objective of the project is to develop a smart charging energy management system and associated smart business models, which can guide the decision-making process to optimally determine where, when and how to charge the electric vehicles. The Department and the Faculty of Construction and Environment (FCE) will be continuously dedicated to the high-level research in the field of smart traffic and smart transportation.   The Department would like to congratulate Dr Cao and his team on the success for this project application, and wish them continued success.

BEEE’s Ph.D. Student Won the Best Production Award in the Learning to Learn (L2L) Video Contest

The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is pleased to announce that a team composed of our Ph.D. student, Tejeshwar Yarlagadda and Bharati Das (student of PolyU Design) won the Best Production Award in the Learning to Learn (L2L) Video Contest for a video entitled “If Technology was your friend”.   The L2L Video Contest was organized by the Learning to Learn Community of Practice (L2L CoP) in March and April 2022. It invited students and teachers to create short videos to share their insights and discoveries with a view to helping others to become better learners. This year, a total of 50 videos were submitted from the PolyU community to compete for the prizes. For more information about the Contest, please visit: https://www.polyu.edu.hk/CoP/2020/L2L/events.html   An Awards Presentation Ceremony was held on 8 June 2022    The Department would like to congratulate Mr Tejeshwar Yarlagadda and his team on the excellent achievement. We wish them continued success.  

BEEE’s Associate Professor Awarded Young Innovative Researcher Award (YIRA) 2022

The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is pleased to announce that our Associate Professor, Dr Wei Minchen Tommy was awarded Young Innovative Researcher Award (YIRA) 2022 for a research project entitled “Human vision-based solutions for lighting and imaging systems”.   The PolyU Young Innovative Researcher Award (YIRA) aims to honor young PolyU researchers under the age of 35 who have demonstrated novelty, contributed to technology advancement, and propelled transformational innovation into solutions for addressing problems in society with a vision for a positive change to the future. This year, the YIRA assessment panel has reviewed 59 submissions across 22 departments, interviewed shortlisted applicants and selected six YIRA awardees. Each YIRA awardee will receive research funding support of HK$500,000 and personal cash prize of HK$20,000 as the encouragement for their research novelty and impact.     Dr Wei’s research focuses on color science, trying to understand how humans see color and light using different methods (e.g., psychophysics, eye-tracking, etc). The findings help to develop algorithms and solutions for various industries, including lighting, cameras, displays, smartphones, VR/AR/MR-enabled metaverse systems, through the collaborations with world-leading high-tech industrial partners.   The Department would like to congratulate Dr Wei on the excellent achievement. We wish him continued success.

BEEE’s Alumni on List of Highly Cited Chinese Researchers 2021

The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) is proud to announce that our alumni, Dr Ma Tao is among the most influential researchers according to Elsevier’s Highly Cited Chinese Researchers 2021.   Dr Ma Tao, 2015 PhD graduate of BEEE, supervised by Professor Yang Hongxing and Professor Lu Lin Vivien, has been named as one of the Highly Cited Chinese Scholars in the field of Power Engineering and Engineering Thermophysics in 2021. He is currently an Associate Professor at the School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His research is mainly related to fundamental research and applications of solar photovoltaic technologies.   The Highly Cited Chinese Researchers list analyzes the performance of Chinese scholars' scientific research achievements based on Elsevier’s world-renowned abstract and citation database Scopus and methodology developed by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, and has been highly influential since it was first released in 2015.   The Department would like to congratulate Dr Ma Tao on the excellent achievement. We wish him continued success.

BEEE’s Ph.D. Student Was Elected Student Research Fellow of the SFPE Grand Challenges Initiative

The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is pleased to report that our Ph.D. candidate, Mr. Zhang Tianhang, was elected as Student Research Fellow of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) Grand Challenges Initiative.   See more details in https://www.sfpe.org/foundation/grandchallenges/gci-student-research-fellows   SFPE Grand Challenges Initiative aims to identify how fire safety science and engineering can contribute to addressing pressing challenges in the following four topics: Energy & Infrastructure, Resilience & Sustainability, Climate Change, and Digitalization, Artificial Intelligence, & Cybersecurity. Each of the four Working Groups will be supported by a Student Research Fellow. Tianhang was elected as Student Research Fellow in the working group of Digitalization, Artificial Intelligence, & Cybersecurity, and the other fellows are postdocs. He will support the 2022 GCI Virtual Summit and conduct one-year work on the assigned topic area, participate in drafting, reviewing, and editing a 10-year strategic engagement plan for the field. A fellowship of USD 5,000 will be provided by SFPE Foundation to support his research work.   Under the supervision of Dr. Huang Xinyan and Prof. Xiao Fu. Mr. Zhang Tianhang is exploring how AI methods can help firefighting and how to realize the AI-assistant firefighting actions with the Internet of Things and Digital Twin technologies. So far, he has published several journal papers on smart firefighting in Fire Technology, Fire Safety Journal, and Tunneling and Underground Space Technology.   The Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) is the world's leading professional society representing those practicing in the field of fire protection and fire safety engineering. The Society has over 4,800 members and over 100 chapters worldwide, including more than 20 student chapters. The SFPE Hong Kong Student Chapter was founded in 2019. It is the first student chapter in the Greater China Area and wins the Gold Award in 2012. Mr Tianhang Zhang currently serves as the president of SFPE Hong Kong Student Chapter.   The Department would like to congratulate Mr. Zhang Tianhang on the excellent achievement. We wish him continued success.  

The Establishment of the Faculty of Construction and Environment Education and Research Fund (FCE Fund)

On 26 March 2022, an online launch ceremony of the FCE Fund was hosted and graced by Prof. Jin-Guang Teng, President of PolyU, Prof. Xiang-dong Li, Dean of FCE, Ms Belinda Chow, Director of Alumni Affairs and Development and Ir Yau Kwok-fai, President of the Federation of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University Alumni Associations.   The establishment of the FCE Fund, with the backing of the University, provides sustainable resources to the Faculty to accelerate its research and education efforts, with the ultimate goal of benefiting our society and the wider world.   To learn more about the FCE fund, please visit FCE Fund’s website or view the introduction video.

BEEE’s Undergraduate Students Won the Silver Award of Outstanding Presentation at IFMA’s Inter-Institutional Competition on Facility Management Project Presentation 2021

The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is pleased to announce that a team of BEEE’s undergraduate students, namely Ms. Lam Ying Tung and Ms. Cheng Tin Yui, has won the Silver Award of Outstanding Presentation at IFMA’s Inter-Institutional Competition on Facility Management Project Presentation 2021.   IFMA’s Inter-Institutional Competition on Facility Management Project Presentation 2021 The IFMA presentation competition is an inter-institutional presentation competition in the Asia Pacific region. Founded in 2011, the competition encourages students to ignite their passion in the profession and pursuing in Facility Management (FM) as their career of choice. The competition focuses on eleven FM core competencies, including Communication, Finance and business, Human factors, Leadership and strategy, Operations and maintenance, Project management, Quality, Real estate and property management, Technology, Environmental stewardship and sustainability, and Emergency preparedness and business continuity. Eight finalists, coming from different institutions, were shortlisted to the final round of the competition. The project presentation was held on 22 January 2022.   The students’ presentation topic falls in the FM core competency “Environmental stewardship and sustainability”.   Presentation Title: Potential Development of Electric Vehicle Batteries Recycling in Hong Kong   Abstract of Presentation: Transportation accounts for around 24% of direct CO2 emissions from fuel combustion in 2020 (IEA, 2020). The use of electric vehicles (EV) has been a worldwide trend, in replace of traditional vehicles, which offers ideal opportunities for broadening the implementation of renewables to the transport sector. As proved by O’Dea (2019) and Reichmuth (2020), electric vehicles’ life cycle global warming emissions are significantly lower than those for vehicles fueled with gasoline or diesel traditionally, electric vehicles are an option for reducing the exploitation of fossil fuels. However, the lifespan of electric vehicle batteries is estimated to be 3 to 15 years (D. Strickland et al., 2014). Large amount of end-of-life EV batteries is expected to emerge in the near future. It is estimated that the EVs put on the road in 2019 will eventually generate 500,000 metric tons of battery waste to our landfills (Harper et al., 2019). Yet, the recycling industry of EV batteries recycling is still so immature that only a few countries support battery recycling, including Belgium, China, South Korea, the US and the UK. According to the International Energy Agency (2021), the world currently has enough capacity to recycle 180,000 metric tons of dead EV batteries per annum, universal recycling of EV batteries is one of the key issues that researchers have to tackle.   The students would like to express their sincere gratitude to Dr. Joseph Lai for nominating them to join the Competition. Also, the students stated that they reflected a lot on these FM topics and got inspired by the judging panel.   The Department would like to congratulate Ms. Lam Ying Tung and Ms. Cheng Tin Yui on their excellent achievement. We wish them continued success.    

BEEE’s PhD Student Won the Best Paper Award in Student Category at the NCRAC 2022 Conference

The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is pleased to announce that our PhD students, Dharmasastha Kumar won the best paper award in Student Category at the NCRAC 2022 for a paper entitled “Influence of water flow path on thermal comfort of radiant cooling system - An experimental study”.   NCRAC 2022 Conference 7th National and 1st International Conference on Refrigeration and Air Conditioning (NCRAC-2022) is organised by the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati and Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati, India. The conference was held from 24 to 26th February 2022. The theme of the conference was Energy Efficient and Environment-Friendly HVAC&R Systems. It was organised in association with Indian Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ISHRAE) Guwahati Sub-Chapter and it is supported by ISHRAE and American Society of Heating and Refrigeration Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).   Paper Title: Influence of Water Flow Path on Thermal Comfort of Radiant Ceiling Cooling System - An Experimental Study   Abstract: Construction and operation in the building sector account for more than 1/5th of global energy consumption. Moving on to an energy-efficient cooling technology and eco-friendly building material can lead to energy saving and reduction in associated CO2 emissions. In the present study, an energy-efficient thermally activated building system (TABS) is integrated with eco-friendly building material, namely, glass fibre reinforced gypsum (GFRG). The proposed hybrid system is termed as thermally activated glass fibre reinforced gypsum (TAGFRG) system. This system is not only energy-efficient and eco-friendly but also provides better thermal comfort. An experimental room is constructed with the TAGFRG roof within the Indian Institute of Technology Madras campus, Chennai, i.e., in a tropical warm and humid climate zone. The TAGFRG roof has reinforcement in every third cavity while the cooling pipes are embedded in the other two with air gap and partial reinforcement. The TAGFRG roof has four parallel loops of cooling pipelines, and each loop consists of one reinforcement zone (RZ) and two air gap zones (AZ1 and AZ2) in series. According to the water flow path in a single loop, various combinations of the flow path, i.e., RZàAZ1àAZ2, AZ1àRZàAZ2 and AZ1àAZ2àRZ, have been analyzed. The influence of the water flow path on thermal comfort is insignificant. The average operative temperature for all the cases investigated varies between 28.1 and 29.2°C. The operative temperature is always within the 90% thermal comfort band.    Experiment Setup:   The Department would like to congratulate Mr. Dharmasastha Kumar on the excellent achievement. We wish him continued success.  

BEEE’s Project Group Awarded in the President’s Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Knowledge Transfer 2021

The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is pleased to announce that our project group, led by our Chair Professor, Prof. Wang Shengwei as the Project Coordinator and with Prof. Xiao Fu, Dr Li Hangxin, Dr Shan Kui, the Building Energy and Automation Research Laboratory (BEAR) and the Research and Institute for Smart Energy (RISE), was awarded the Team Award in Knowledge Transfer: Industry in the President’s Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Knowledge Transfer 2021 for a project entitled “Transfer and implementation of smart technologies for building life-cycle optimization and diagnosis”. BEAR led by Prof. Wang has developed a serial of smart technologies for saving energy in new and existing buildings. These technologies can be grouped into three categories as follows. Building Energy Diagnosis Tools including: Building level energy performance quick evaluation and diagnostic tool, Detailed evaluation and diagnostic tool for A/C and BA systems, etc.; Virtual Test Platforms including: Building system online performance simulation test platform (digital twin), BA control and diagnosis strategy online test platform, etc.; Optimization Tools including: Building HVAC system probabilistic design optimization tool, Package of online smart energy efficient control and diagnosis strategies, etc. These technologies are implemented in many buildings and development projects, such as various commercial buildings, hotels and industrial buildings, by means of contract research and consultancy services of over 20 projects with total amount over HKD 13M in the period between 2012 and 2018. Besides achieving energy saving for the industrial partners (collective annual energy saving of over 2 M kWh), these application projects also provide the team strong support and latest information on the development needs for the further research and development of the novel methodologies and technologies for smart, energy efficient and energy flexible buildings and districts towards carbon neutrality. The Award recognized our researchers’ outstanding contributions in knowledge transfer and significant impacts on the industry. The Department would like to congratulate the team on the excellent achievement. We wish them continued success.