Faculty of Civil Engineering
Department: Department of Building Construction
Contact person: Assoc. Prof. Milan Palko, PhD.
Contact: +421 2 592 740 441, +421 2 592 740 643
e-mail: milan.palko@stuba.sk
Description:
The Department of Building Structures (DBS) at the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava is one of the leading Slovak facilities devoted to building research and development. It assists in the research of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, students, the building industry, the regulatory community and others interested in building and construction practice.
The mission statement of the DBS says: “Identify, develop, and deploy sustainable and energy-efficient building system technologies by forming partnerships between university sources and industry for analysis, well-characterized experiments, technological development, and market outreach“.
The scientific and research activity of the Department is aimed at problems of thermal comfort, heat and humidity transfer through the walls and roofs of buildings and their joints, sound transmission in buildings, room and urban acoustics, the theory of day lighting and the solar energy of buildings, air infiltration and the effect of driven rain on walls and roofs of buildings and their joints, the total energy effectiveness of buildings, the durability of building materials, diagnoses, and building reconstruction.
Laboratory equipment:
- Large climatic chamber for synergistic research on heat transfer, vapour diffusion and air infiltration under steady-state and transient boundary conditions,
- Acoustic chamber for experimental research on airborne sound and impact of sound insulation - allows laboratory measurements of airborne sound insulation of vertical and horizontal separating components and also to measure the impact of sound insulation of floors,
- Large pressure chamber for research on air infiltration through details or elements of the building envelope loaded with a total pressure difference ∆p,
- Rain chamber for research on water penetration through details, parts and systems of building envelopes,
- Solar chamber for study of the energy balance of windows and, in general, materials of building envelopes,
- Wind tunnel - allows experiments to determine the static and dynamic effects of wind on models of buildings and civil engineering works. The models are placed in a turbulent flow, which is simulated as a natural wind over various categories of terrain roughness. Length of the tunnel is 26.3 m.
Projects:
Ongoing research and educational projects:
- Research of indoor light environment based on chronobiology and circadian photometry (APVV)
- Symbiosis of interaction of renewable energy sources and system link building-climate-energy in the ecology of low-energy, green and sustainable architecture (APVV)
- Contribution to the solution of selected problems of roofs of buildings (VEGA)
- Building simulation in climate conditions of Slovak Republic (VEGA)
- Principles of Sustainable Building (Erasmus Mundus joint programmes)
Publications:
DBS annually publishes about 200 to 300 publications ranging from research reports and electronic communications through professional journal articles, training materials to the academic literature.
Cooperation:
Within Slovakia KKPS cooperates or has cooperated with nearly every major industrial company and academic institution with competence in the field of construction. From among foreign institutions and enterprises especially collaboration with major universities in all neighboring countries must be picked up, then with KU Leuven, the University of Manchester and the University of Strathclyde and also with enterprises such as BASF, NV Scheldebouw and Physibel.
Photos:
Fig.1 Wind tunnel – exterior view
Fig. 2: Large climatic chamber for synergistic research on heat transfer, vapour diffusion and air infiltration
Fig. 3: Rain chamber for research on water penetration through details of walls and roofs
