Ismet Ugursal

Research interests

• Energy
• Thermo/Fluids
• Energy System Modeling
• Residential Energy Consumption
• Advanced Power Cycles

(Modeling and analysis of energy consumption in the residential sector, Energy management, planning and conservation, Energy conservation, Advanced power generation cycles, Heat Pump Systems, Design and analysis of building thermal systems.)

Biography

Dr. Ugursal worked in various areas of energy engineering as a consultant, project director, researcher, and teacher. He has worked on energy and international development projects in Canada, Turkey, Sierra Leone, Russia, Columbia, The Gambia, Trinidad and Tobago, the Philippines and Thailand. Over the past ten years, he received more than 20 research contracts and grants as the project director/principal investigator with a total external funding of more than $2 million.

Before joining the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Technical University of Nova Scotia (TUNS amalgamated with Dalhousie University on April 1, 1997), he worked as a project engineer in a consulting engineering company specializing in energy management and conservation. During this term, he conducted a wide range of energy optimization projects in the commercial and institutional building sectors, as well as the industrial sector.

Prior to his consulting career, he worked in the Energy and Mechanical Engineering Division of Marmara Research Centre of the National Research Council of Turkey. He was involved in a wide range of solar energy and industrial energy optimization projects.

Teachings

He teaches courses on thermodynamics, heating, ventilating and air-conditioning, energy management, internal combustion engines, and energy conversion.

Awards

• Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award of the Society of Automotive Engineers, 1990
• United Nations TOKTEN award, 1993
• Professor of the Year award (given by Senior Mechanical Engineering students, an honor he cherishes the most), 2001

Selected publications

• Nikoofard, S, Ugursal, VI, Beausoleil-Morrison, I. Economic analysis of energy upgrades based on tolerable capital cost. J of Energy Engineering, accepted for publication, March 2014.
• Nikoofard, S, Ugursal, VI, Beausoleil-Morrison, I. An Investigation of the Technoeconomic Feasibility of Solar Domestic Hot Water Heating for the Canadian Housing Stock Solar Energy. Solar Energy. 101 (2014) 308-320. 
  
• Asaee, R, Ugursal, VI, Beausoleil-Morrison, I, Ben-Abdallah, N. Preliminary study for solar combisystem potential in Canadian houses. In-print, Applied Energy. Dec. 2013.  
  
• Ugursal, VI. Energy consumption, associated questions and some answers. In-press. Applied Energy. Nov. 2013.
  
• Nikoofard, S, Ugursal, VI, Beausoleil-Morrison, I. Technoeconomic assessment of the impact of window shading retrofits on the heating and cooling energy consumption and GHG emissions of the Canadian housing stock. Energy and Buildings 69 (2014) 354–366.
• Nikoofard, S, Ugursal, VI, Beausoleil-Morrison, I. Technoeconomic assessment of the impact of window improvements on the heating and cooling energy requirement and GHG emissions of the Canadian Housing Stock. J of Energy Engineering, accepted for publication, May 2013.
• Bligh, DC, Ugursal, VI, Exergy Efficiency Factors for Transportation – Updated Reistad Estimates, Int J of Exergy, 12/2 (2013) 273-277.
• Bligh, DC, Ugursal, VI, Extended Exergy Analysis of the Economy of Nova Scotia, Canada, Energy, 44 (2012) 878-890  (DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2012.04.061).
• Ugursal, VI, Energy Use and Changing Energy Policies of Trinidad and Tobago, Energy Policy, Energy Policy 39 (2011) 5791-5794.
• Swan, L, Ugursal, VI, Beausoleil-Morrison, I, Hybrid Residential End-Use Energy and GHG Emissions Model – Development and Verification for Canada, J. of Building Performance Simulation, (2011) 1-23 (DOI:10.1080/19401493.2011.594906).
• Nikoofard, S, Ugursal, VI, Beausoleil-Morrison, I, Effect of external shading on household energy requirement for heating and cooling in Canada, Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 1627–1635.
• Swan, L, Ugursal, VI, Beausoleil-Morrison, I, Occupant related household energy consumption in Canada: Estimation using a bottom-up neural-network technique, Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 326–337.
• Lombardi, K, Ugursal, V. I, Beausoleil-Morrison, I, Proposed improvements to a model for characterizing the electrical and thermal energy performance of Stirling engine micro-cogeneration devices based upon experimental observations. Applied Energy. 87 (2010) 3271–3282.
• Farhat, AAM, Ugursal, VI, Greenhouse gas emission intensity factors for marginal electricity generation in Canada. Int. J. of Energy Research, 34/15 (2010) 1309–1327.
• Aussant, CD, Fung, AS, Ugursal, VI, Taherian, H, Residential application of internal combustion engine based cogeneration in cold climate-Canada, Energy and Buildings 41 (2009) 1288–1298.
• Syed, AM, Fung, AS, Ugursal, VI, Taherian, H, Analysis of PV/wind potential in the Canadian residential sector through high-resolution building energy simulation. Int. J. of Energy Research, 33 (2009) 342-357.
• Swan, L, Ugursal, VI, Modeling of End-Use Energy Consumption in the Residential Sector: A Review of Modeling Techniques. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 13 (2009) 1819-1835.
• Swan, L, Ugursal, VI, Beausoleil-Morrison, I. A Database of House Descriptions Representative of the Canadian Housing Stock for Coupling to Building Energy Performance Simulation. J. of Building Performance Simulation. 2/2 (2009) 75–84. (One of the 10 most downloaded papers of 2010).
• Syed, AM, Fung, AS, Ugursal, VI, "Environmental and economic impacts of integrating photovoltaic and wind-turbine energy systems in the Canadian residential sector", Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 28/3 (2008) 210-218.
• Ozil, E, Ugursal, VI, Akbulut, U, Ozpinar, A, "Renewable Energy and Environmental Awareness and Opinions: A Survey of University Students in Canada, Romania and Turkey", Int. J. of Green Energy, 5 (2008) 174-188.
• Guler, B, Ugursal, VI, Fung, AS, Aydinalp-Koksal, M, “Impact of energy efficiency upgrade retrofits on the residential energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions”, Int. J. Environmental Technology and Management, 9/4 (2008) 434-444.
• Aydinalp, M, Ugursal, VI, “Comparison of Neural Network and Conditional Demand Analysis Approaches for Modeling End-use Energy Consumption in the Residential Sector”, Applied Energy, 85 (2008) 271-296.