Cynthia Cruickshank – a Carleton University professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and director of Carleton’s Centre for Advanced Building Envelope Research (CU-CABER) – has received $5.1 million from the NRCan Energy Innovation Program and the Ontario Research Fund (ORF) to develop more energy-efficient building framing systems.

Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change visited the campus to make the announcement supporting the construction of large-scale building envelope test equipment, including a state-of-the-art, two-story guarded hot box with a spray rack, capable of testing full-scale residential and building facades, and a materials characterization lab.

CU-CABER will work with researchers from Algonquin College and the Cold Climate Housing Research Center to study how heat, air and moisture move through materials and highly insulated wall systems, and how these elements contribute to occupant health, comfort and building science risks, including condensation, mould growth and rot.

Cruickshank says the partnership is “especially valuable as it creates learning opportunities at all levels in the workforce – including construction trades, building design professionals, engineers and project managers, and building science researchers.”

The research will also provide new technical solutions to cut heat loss in buildings and reduce the cost associated with net-zero ready and deep energy retrofit construction.

Image courtesy of Fangliang Xu/Carleton University.