What is the impact of various design strategies on design primary air flow rate of chilled beams?

Graphic Name:

What is the impact of various design strategies on design primary air flow rate of chilled beams?

Submitted By:

Yiyuan Jia

Firm Name:

Affiliated Engineers, Inc.

Other contributors or acknowledgements (optional):

What are the primary inputs of the analysis/analyses included in the case study?

chilled beams, fin tubes, suppress dew points, heat pipe, shading, recirculating fans

What are the primary outputs/metrics of the analysis/analyses included in this case study?

chilled beam design primary air flow rates

Gross Floor Area of Project Covered by Analysis

592

ASHRAE Climate Zone

5B

Project Zip Code (optional)

If you selected 'Mixed Use' on the previous question, what are the different uses?

Laboratory, Office

List the investigations questions that drove your analysis process.

The graphics are created base on an in-house HVAC design assist tool, the 5 radar charts illustrate the design primary air flow rates driven by outdoor air, sensible cooling, sensible heating, and latent cooling accordingly. In active chilled beam (ACB) design, the outer most primary air flow in the radar chart would anchor the design primary air flow rate and used for equipment selection. We analyzed different strategies that would reduce the design primary air flow and leave only the ventilation air as the driver, the goal is to achieve a fully decoupled ACB system design.

How was simulation integrated into the overall design process?

Simulations are conducted as as means to answer the "what-if" questions asked by design engineers and modeler. The goal was to reduce primary air and reduce beam sizing(in other word, cost of energy and equipment), with this in mind, multiple design strategies have been assessed through simulation.

How did you set up the simulation analysis and workflow?

The simulation analysis is set up in a building simulation tool called EPC, it is developed base on the ISO-13790 standard by Georgia Tech High Performance Buildings Lab, the author further developed a HVAC simulation module base on the hourly EPC calculator. The calculations in the submitted documents are conducted using the hand crafted tools.

How did you visualize the results to the design team? What was successful about the graphics that you used to communicate the data?

The data was presented to the with both scatter chart and radar chart, the hourly design air flow rates drive by each load are represented with different colors. The design primary air is then anchored by the outer most dot in the radar chart and is represented as a solid circle (with the same color with the driver), as in this case the chilled beam air flow is constant.