Dr. Talal Salem, Chairperson and Associate Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (DCEE) at Notre Dame University-Louaize (NDU), and Mohamad Kazma, Graduate Research Assistant at the DCEE, presented their research findings on “Mechanical Characterization of a Concrete Masonry Block Enhanced With Micro-Encapsulated Phase Changing Materials” at the CISBAT 2021 Scientific Conference which was held in the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland on September 8-10, 2021.
Their novel research work entails the development of concrete masonry units enhanced with bio-based micro-encapsulated phase changing materials. These enhanced blocks utilize thermal energy storage (TES) that is a key factor in thermal envelope design for building and is based on a system that usually relies on sensible or latent energy storage.
Dr. Salem highlighted the importance of this research project in providing sustainable solutions for construction, an indispensable need and direction that engineers and researchers should prioritize.
From his end, Kazma shared his enthusiasm in working alongside Dr. Salem to present this innovative solution and be involved in all the phases of the research project.
The conference focused on finding creative and timely solutions to the ward-off threats posed by human induced climate changes, and addressed researchers from academic and industrial backgrounds as well as other professionals active in the domains of renewable energy, sustainability, building, and urbanism.
Keynotes presented research findings on the built environment’s transition to carbon neutrality, thus, offering a scientific platform for the presentation of research that pushes the boundaries of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies.
The NDU team addressed the topic of smart materials within the building envelopes, which will be published in the IOP’s Scopus indexed “Journal of Physics: Conference Series”.