ASHRAE announced its 2017 Undergraduate Program Equipment Grants, which will fund 26 undergraduate projects led by students from around the world. The awarded grants total more than $118,000 and will help the winning students complete their undergraduate projects.

The Undergraduate Program Equipment Grants is an ASHRAE program that provides grants to engineering, technical, and architectural schools worldwide. Its goal is to increase student knowledge, learning, and awareness of the HVACR industry through the design and construction of senior projects. Grants are used to fund equipment and supplies for senior projects and two-year technical school projects that focus on ASHRAE-related topics.

"Discovering and supporting undergraduate engineering, technical, and architectural projects is crucial to enhancing the quality of hands-on experiences for students," says Russell Marcks, a previous winner of the grants and current Student Activities Chair for ASHRAE. "These grants are incredibly helpful in presenting students with the opportunities to work in a task-oriented lab environment with the same real equipment they will work with in the field as professionals."

More than 46 entries were received and evaluated for this year’s grants. The winning projects were chosen based upon guidelines that include: relevance as an ASHRAE-related topic, long-term student impact of the project, amount of funding requested, and the participating students’ involvement with ASHRAE.

This year’s winning projects are:

• “Ductless Mini-Split Demonstration Units,” California State Polytechnic University at Pomona

• “Integration of a Humidifier and Measuring Points to an HVAC Teaching Mockup,” École de Technologie Supérieure

• “Solar Powered Adsorption Refrigerator for Storage of Vaccines in Remote Areas,” Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology

• “Air Heating and Dehumidification for Low Airflow Velocities in Electrohydrodynamic Assisted Food Drying,” Grove City College

• “Undergraduate Building Science Laboratory: HVAC Systems and Measurements,” Illinois Institute of Technology

• “Design and Development of DC Inverter Operated Air Conditioner Using Alternative Refrigerant HFC-161 as an Alternative to HCFC-22,” Maharashtra Institute of Technology College of Engineering

• “Development of Versatile Refrigeration Test Rig with Mini Channel Condenser,” Marathwada Mitra Mandal's College of Engineering Pune

• “Development and Evaluation of Solar Hybrid Adsorption Cooling System for Rural Application as a Demonstration Unit,” and “Development and Fabrication of Standing Wave Thermo-Acoustic Refrigeration System as a Training and Demonstration Unit,” Nagarjuna College of Engineering and Technology

• “Application of Reconfigurable Field-Programmable Gate Array Technology in the Design and Implementation of HVAC Control and Building Automation System,” North Carolina A&T State University

• “A Hot-Gas Bypass Load Stand to Demonstrate Compressor Performance,” and “A Learning Environment for the Selection of HVAC Duct Work,” and “Ground Source Heat Pump Learning Environment for Undergraduate Education,” Oklahoma State University

• “Performance Analysis of Solar Operated Milk Refrigerator Using Hybrid Nanomaterials,” Poornima College of Engineering

• “Design of Thermoelectric Cooler in Air Duct System,” Purdue University Northwest

• “Biothermal Heating of Greenhouses with Thermal Storage for Northern Climates,” Rochester Institute of Technology

• “Design and Prototyping of a Carbon-Dioxide-Based Heat Pump Integrated Energy System,” Ryerson University

• “Variable Air Volume / Constant Air Volume Air Handling Unit Design, Installation and Commissioning,” Sinclair Community College

• “Air Handler Input / Output Training Station,” State University of New York, Canton

• “Air Performance Test Unit for Electronically-Commutated Plug Fans,” Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong

• “Design and Construction of Radiant Cooling System in Residential Houses for Comfort Cooling in Humid and Tropical Countries,” Technological Institute of the Philippines-Quezon City

• “Development of a Localized HVAC System Installed in a Desk,” Universidade do Algarve

• “Indoor Environment Quality Platform,” University of Novi Sad

• “Design and Fabrication of a Force Draft Cooling Tower Laboratory Training Unit,” University of Santo Tomas

• “Nanofluid Absorber,” University of Windsor

• “Energy and Thermal Comfort Evaluation for Occupancy-Based Variable Air Volume System Controls,” University of Wyoming

The top two projects will be presented during the student program at ASHRAE’s 2018 Winter Conference, which will take place January 20-24, 2018 in Chicago. Those projects are “Design and Prototyping of a Carbon-Dioxide-based Heat Pump Integrated Energy System” from Ryerson University and “A Hot-Gas Bypass Load Stand to Demonstrate Compressor Performance” from Oklahoma State University. For more information about the program, visit www.ashrae.org/grants.