The design of agricultural buildings, building components, and environmental control equipment requires an understanding of the complex relationships between the internal environment and the biological system nurtured within the structure. The environmental requirements for the plants, animals, or crops within a building dictate unique design criteria and require specific atmosphere control systems. Design provisions must also be made to resist the internal and external forces to which a structure is subjected during its normal use. The environmental, biological, and structural interrelationships are complex and involve an understanding of solid mechanics, structural analysis, heat and mass transfer, fluid mechanics, environmental control, and the basic knowledge of the biological systems that are to be grown, protected, and housed within the building.

Our recent research has focused on the systems approach of analysis in the area of structural, production and environmental control applications. Interest areas have included commercial greenhouse and cold storage energy management programs;

• remote sensing and computerized environmental control systems
• development of automatic data acquisition systems for determining respiration and transpiration losses of stored horticultural crops
• development and modeling of methods for the control of natural ventilation
• quantifying air mixing within ventilated spaces
• studies of air quality in calf nurseries
• mechanistic modeling of energy (feed and water) requirements of dairy cattle
• economic optimization of a poultry production system and software/hardware interfacing to control mechanical equipment
• development of intensive aquaculture systems
• development of storage environments including controlled atmosphere (CA), and low ethylene storage systems
• rapid cooling methods for fruits and vegetables
• development of sophisticated structural analysis computer programs
• diaphragm design of post-frame buildings
• prediction of stiffness of roof diaphragm and endwalls
• full-scale testing of a post frame building, and probabilistic modeling and reliability analysis of metal-plate wood truss connections
• Many of our studies are conducted through association of agricultural engineers, animal scientists, plant scientists, and agribusiness.

Faculty with Research Interests in this Specialization can be found here