UMass Amherst: Building and Construction Technology

These are reseach topics we are working on now or have been in the past.

Architectural-Engineering-Construction (AEC) digital planning and visualization

• Interactive 3D visualization of buildings and built environments (Schreyer)
• Crowdsourcing of geo-referenced information for decision support (Schreyer)
• Digital design tools (Schreyer)

Bamboo in structures

• A Low-technology Approach toward Development of Laminated Bamboo Lumber (Mahdavi, Clouston and Arwade)
• Development of Laminated Bamboo Lumber: a review of processing, performance and economical considerations (Mahdavi, Clouston and Arwade)
• Bio-mimicry of natural materials for structural applications (Clouston)

Bio-based building materials

• Wood-Concrete Composite Systems (Clouston, Schreyer)
• Performance of a nailplate-based Wood-Concrete Composite system (Clouston, Schreyer)
• Shear strength analysis of a glued Wood Concrete Composite System (Clouston, Schreyer)
• Long-term testing of a wood-concrete bridge in situ in New England (Clouston, Schreyer)
• Cross Laminated Timber from Local Species Small-Diameter and Low-Value Material (Clouston, Schreyer and Damery)
• Computer modeling of Structural Composite Lumber strength properties (Clouston)

Bio-based materials and natural resources economics and marketing

• Sustainable use of woody biomass as a renewable alternative to gasoline (Damery, Catanzaro, Blanchard)
• Economic Viability of Land Ownership in the Deerfield Watershed of western Massachusetts (Damery, Catanzaro)
• Economic Impact Analysis of Regional Bioenergy Development (Damery)

Energy diagnostics

• Interactive 3D Visualization of Building Envelope Systems Using Infrared Thermography and SketchUp (Schreyer, Hoque)
• Evaluation of retrofit measures (Weil)

Energy performance and green building

• Performance measures for residential energy analysis (Hoque, Weil, Wood)
• Evaluation of energy simulation tools  (Hoque)
• Computer modeling of building energy use (Hoque)
• Towards zero energy aquaculture facilities (Damery, Danylchuk, Hoque, Hollingsworth)
• Energy analysis of historically significant buildings from the Modernist period (Hoque, Page)