Research Areas

Surbana-Jurong NTU Corporate Laboratory Research Areas

Surbana Jurong-NTU Corporate Lab focuses on fundamental to translational R&D in three key research areas as follow.

a) Pillar 1: Intelligent Urban Solutions
b) Pillar 2: Active solutions for Sustainability

c) Pillar 3: Future of Construction and Underground

lntelligent Urban Solutions 

Urban digitisation is key in planning cities and building management and this is increasingly achieved firstly through digitisation and integration of the design services value chain and secondly through effective use of IOT technology, mobile and wearable devices.

Smart City in a Box

Surbana Jurong has launched its ‘Smart City in a Box”, a platform that gels various intelligent urban solutions together. This open platform allows customisable applications (Apps) to be loaded on a dashboard for city officials to plan, collate, monitor and analyse data, and in so doing, engage the community and deploy solutions to manage the urban infrastructure more effectively. 

These interfaces support an intelligent urban landscape and can be grouped around applications enabling key platforms:

  • smart environment
  • smart community
  • smart mobility
  • smart resources
  • smart buildings

The Facility Management (FM) of tomorrow will have to provide services that incorporate these new technologies and occupant experience that enhances the value of the building. These automated systems must be enabled by an intelligence that creates timely and effective responses to changing needs. This is the expectation of Facilities Management 2.0.

Active Solutions for Sustainability

Effective urban planning can be achieved through advanced testing in urban planning to attain a smart liveable environment. The objective is to achieve energy savings from the Code-established baseline for urban area and buildings, and look at various parameters and metrics on how sustainability impacts liveability.

These projects aim to improve sustainability, saving energy, money well-being while caring for our environment in cities. To achieve these objectives, we need to learn and understand better our building and district by using Smart technologies to further improve the efficiency of the building. This will make full use of technology to live, work, learn, and play, and be translated into support for strategic priorities of better living, well-being, increased opportunities and stronger communities.

 

Future of Construction and Underground

The construction sector is constantly searching for new materials, new ways of design and new places to build. One challenge to address is the storage of LNG. Our research will explore new capabilities to optimise LNG storage below ground (i.e. basement or caverns), including containment membrane materials and harnessing the cold energy generated.

The research will also test applications for harnessing cold energy including:

  • district cooling,
  • rain water harvesting and purification, and
  • radiant cooling systems.

The availability of LNG underground could also allow (through the reformation process) the powering of hydrogen fuel cells for underground logistics applications, negating pollution and ventilation infrastructure.

The underground storage of LNG enhances safety, and could allow up to 95% reduction in amount of land sterilization.

This research and prototype/living lab will position SJ as a pioneer of decentralised LNG urban storage with proven design and operation/maintenance.