Three Canadian universities receive ASHRAE awards to fund undergraduate projects

ASHRAE will award a total of $163,000 for 2023-24 academic year to fund 34 projects through ASHRAE Undergraduate Program Equipment Grants.

Three Canadian institutions have been announced as recipients:

• “Novel Phase Change Material (PCM) Ventilation System,” Concordia University, Montreal
• “Building Materials and Their Thermal Properties,” University of Alberta, Edmonton
• “Plug and Play Potable Heat Exchanger with BMS,” University of Regina, Regina

Pictured above: “We hope that the projects funded through the ASHRAE Undergraduate Program Equipment Grants will provide students with an invaluable learning experience and also serve as an instrument of advancing HVAC&R innovations. Congratulations to the selected schools,” said Mai Anh Dao, chair of the ASHRAE Student Activities Committee.

The ASHRAE Undergraduate Program Equipment Grants provides grants to engineering, technical and architectural schools worldwide. Its goal is to increase student knowledge, learning and awareness of the HVAC&R industry through the design and construction of senior projects. Grants are used to fund equipment and supplies from one academic term up to one year.

A total of 77 applications were submitted for the grants and seven countries were represented among the projects selected. Successful projects were chosen based upon the following guidelines: relevance as an ASHRAE-related topic; long-term student impact of the project; amount of funding requested; and the participating students’ involvement with ASHRAE.

The two highest ranking project teams will be invited to present their projects during the Student Program at the 2024 ASHRAE Winter Conference, taking place January 20-24, 2024 in Chicago.

The top two projects and schools are as follows:

• “Design and Development of Three Stage Vapor Compression System for Ultra-Low Temperature Refrigeration as a Training and Demonstration Unit, Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology, Delhi, India.
• “Design and Development of a Test Bench to Evaluate the Performance of Various Energy Recovery Devices,” MKSSS’s Cummins College of Engineering for Women, Pune, India.

See all the winners here.

For more information about the program, please visit ashrae.org/grants.

Founded in 1894, Atlanta-based ASHRAE is a global professional society committed to serve humanity by advancing the arts and sciences of heating ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration, and their allied fields.