Study of Automation of HVAC System and Component Improvements for Improved Performance

Midterm Report

Submitted by

Nikhil Mohan

090909094 nikhilmoh@gmail.com +91 988 65 60 368

Under the guidance of

Dr. U. A. Kini
Department of Mechanical &Manufacturing Engineering MANIPAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT TOF MECHANICAL AND MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING MANIPAL INSTIITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (A constituent Institute of MANIPAL UNIVERSITY) MANIPAL 576104, KARNATAKA, INDIA

January 2014

1. Introduction
Air conditioning is the process of treating air so as to control simultaneously its temperature, humidity, purity, distribution, air movement, and pressure to meet the requirements of the conditioned space. In a buildings, it provides conditions to people so that they can live and work in comfort, safely, and efficiently. In common perspective, air conditioning is generally associated to cooling and dehumidification during the summer and monsoon seasons when heat is extracted from the space. For larger spaces, HVAC units or plants are set up to manage the cooling and dehumidification of spaces occupied by a large number of people. These spaces can be either places of low activity like houses, hotel rooms, and other residential areas, or hubs of activity like offices, work places, gyms, libraries, etc. These systems manage and handle the air conditioning for sustained periods of time and function under all environmental conditions. These systems are first designed on specific parameters around which they would be functioning. These parameters and factors that are used for the design of such systems are usually very linear in their approach and are based on environmental factors, required condition of the air, tonnage of air to be cooled, humidity, etc. These factors are set into place and used to define the design parameters for the system. A system is then selected to meet these requirements and installed with recommendations from manufacturers. Even though these systems account for load requirements and have redundancies in case of excessive load, they do not have any systems in place for reduction in consumption of energy at times when the load is low. They have cut-off triggers and actuators for system standby till the load the surroundings being conditioned reach an upper threshold at which the system will resume working. This type of system working is very linear and does not account for variation in loads by set patterns of weather, day time, number of people, air swapping, etc, and hence cannot be completely efficient in its energy use. This poses a problem as a system that could hence be saving energy at lower load times continues to run at near full capacity to provide for a fraction of the load. In light of that even Schneider Electric released a problem statement for devising an automation system of HVAC systems of large office buildings to optimise their performance. This is also a major factor in international environment friendly protocols for building construction and maintenance practices. In terms of energy efficiency, older systems fall behind compared to more recent ones as concerns for these factors, environmental or otherwise were not used to design them. Also these systems have certain components and subsystems that can be optimised to increase their performance. These factors sometimes go overlooked and can be a source of improvement, if only minor, of the performance of these systems. The components that come under the purviews of improvements are often ducts, their placements, the distribution system, heat exchangers, cooling towers, etc. Placement of ducts, leakages, exposure to heat, insulation, draft types in cooling tower, water loss, etc all can reduce the actual energy

transfer and especially if the mass of air or water has to travel larger distances to the place where the cooling must be provided the energy loss increases. Here, in this study, the Library at MIT Manipal has been chosen as one such system. The age of the system is significant compared to recent systems and has loads that vary to a great degree over the course of a day and over the course of the week. The climatic conditions around the system also have somewhat regular patterns. This system also has many older components, that though have been serviced could possibly have scope for improvement. This system provides cooling and working to a series of buildings that significantly represent an office space i.e. a large number of people enter and leave these spaces and the trend for their presence can be tracked for a long period of time. These buildings face regular and patterned solar exposure and hence have measurable and patterned solar gain. One final factor that plays an important role in the proper and efficient functioning of any system is maintenance and care. If the system has suffered decay, corrosion, and eutrophication, which HVAC units are prone to, they will suffer energy and in turn efficiency losses. Broken components like thermostats, thermal sensors, actuators, etc. will cause also hinder the functioning of the system as the values and inputs required for cut-off at threshold and consume energy unnecessarily. Large HVAC systems also have a centralised control system called a BMS or a building management system that measures checks, acts as a centre for controlling the system, virtual switchboard for functions in the system and a feed for all data from the different sensors in the system. These systems require constant checks and monitoring and need an operator at all times to manually turn off and on the systems that need to run and that should be turned off. An automation system would allow the BMS to work on a learning algorithm that understands and matches patterns to those already input by the designers based on the building requirements. This would allow the system to save energy by automatically and efficiently regulating the required parameters to meet the desired load. The system itself would have full manual control over the working of the unit in case required. This project is a study of all these factors coming together to make HAVC systems more efficient using the case of a preinstalled, the HVAC unit for the academic blocks of MIT, to study where the system has scope for improvement.

2. Working of the Present System

The current HVAC plant installed is put in place behind the library and comprises of 2 screw type and one centrifugal chillers. These are connected to 4 cooling tower, out of which one is a redundant failsafe. This plant cools 3 buildings out of which one is currently under study by this project. The following figures show the system.

Chiller System and Pump

Cooling Towers and Pumps

Library AHU Layout and Delivery

Chiller System
The current chiller system employed utilises 3 discrete chiller plants, two screw type compression chillers and one centrifugal type compression chiller. All these systems are installed and were designed by Carrier Corporation. As any chiller system, they have 4 major components, the compressor, the condenser, the throttle valve and the chiller.

The compressors in these systems define the capacity and extent of load handled. The screw type chillers take less load, while the centrifugal chiller takes more load.

Each chiller however has the same set of inlets and outlets. 1. 2. 3. 4. Water returning to the chiller from AHUs in the buildings Water going from the chiller to the AHUs in the buildings Water going to the cooling towers from the condenser Water returning from the cooling towers to the condenser

These form 2 separate cycles of water that acts as a working fluid for transfer of heat. One that transfers cold water to the AHUs for cooling the building spaces. A 3 pump system is used to ensure uniform distribution to each of the required spaces, i.e. the NLH, IC, and Library. The same is applied with 4 pumps for the return of used water to the chillers. This water is usually in a temperature range of 7.5 to 13 degrees Celsius and is cold enough to allow the temperature from the vents of the rooms and halls to be 16 degrees Celsius which is usually the lowest set point for cooling of any HVAC system. The temperature of the water going out depends also on the temperature of the water coming into the plant. If the load on the plant is extremely high then the water entering the chiller is too warm to be cooled sufficiently enough to meet the requirements of the temperature set point of the water leaving the chiller. The load on the plant reduces both as the area being cooled loses heat and the actual sources of heat i.e. people and solar exposure reduce. At this point the chiller water cycle comes back to an equilibrium of set temperature and the plant comes back to normal load functioning. At other times the plants must be manually turned off to prevent work from being done for an almost no load requirement environment in the areas being cooled. At this point the room or hall can become too cold even after cut-off as the of cold air remains to the AHUs. Even if the AHUs cut-off cooling, with no heat loss to surroundings the room grows colder and often uncomfortable. Thus chiller plant energy consumption is wasted in maintaining an area cooled without requirements.

Cooling Towers
The cooling towers employed by this plant to remove heat from the gas in the condenser are an upward induced draft type. This means that a powerful fan is used to suck air from the bottom of these towers. The water falls from the top of the tower and is forced to interact with upward flowing air. This interaction causes the water evaporate and hence cool the surrounding falling water by a few degrees. Though this method is effective, there is a certain amount of loss of water due to vaporisation. This means that water must constantly be replenished into the system. The water entering the cooling tower is usually at 36 to 38 degrees Celsius.

The water that exits the cooling tower can be between 31 to 27 degrees Celsius. This allows one to judge the load on the plant as the higher the temperature of water leaving the cooling tower, the higher the load on the plant. A lower temperature of water leaving the cooling tower also means that the effectiveness of the condenser increases and hence can directly improve the performance of the system. Though these towers are designed based on given environmental and load parameters the effectiveness can vary and still be increased as conditions and loads vary. Also the condition of the tower itself can mandate the effectiveness. If the tower has algae or corrosion effecting the inner lining the effectiveness of the system is reduced and can also cause damage to the piping and cooling of the entire system as a whole. Thus this must be taken care of with great importance. The piping of this system also plays a major role in how efficiently this system works as if the piping and layout is not placed correctly the heat loss and gain to the surroundings can increase and hence decrease the efficiency of the system as a whole. The piping if too long and exposed to the sun for long periods of time, even after being insulated, can absorb heat and reduce the effectiveness.

Air Handling Unit

The air handling unit utilises water that comes from the chiller to cool the air for a certain area. Usually each segregated area has an AHU allotted to it for cooling and maintaining air quality. AHUs not only provide cooling but also maintain humidity, maintain Carbon Dioxide and Carbon Monoxide levels in parts per million so as to not allow an area to become toxic. These systems consist of a centrifugal blower that directs the air and blows it into the ducts and into vents. This starts a draft and current in the room to provide cooling. The fans usually suck in air from one inlet that faces a mesh where water flows as a cooling medium. The

water flows through the mesh and cools it. Once the water supply to the AHU is cut-off the air passes through an un-cooled mesh and doesnt get cooled itself enough to cool the surroundings and thus the systems cut-off is controlled by thermostats that turn-off and on the AHU cold water supply. If the amount and mass flow rate of cold water onto the AHU mesh is controlled by the use of an actuator or digitally operated valve, the required amount of cooling can be provided in smaller burst when need rather than having the entire system be active to provide cooling in times of low load.

Design Parameters
Usually the design parameters for an HVAC system based on load are as follows: 1. Volume Tonnage: The volume of air to be cooled or the size of the area to be conditioned. 2. Humidity Regulation: Based on the humidity of the ambient air, the humidity in the enclosed space can be set and regulated to maintain a comfortable environment. 3. Heat Sources: The sources of heat around the area to be cooled, such as the heat from the lighting, from people, from walls, etc. 4. AHU Fan power: To ensure a continuous draft for the flow of air to be constant and directed correctly for optimum comfort. 5. Sensor placement: The placement of sensors in the system can and often dictate how the reading and how the system responds to the information. 6. Air Change rates: This is used to ensure that stale air does not get cycled over and over and that fresh air gets swapped into the system so the CO2 levels do not rise. 7. Mass Flow rates: The amount of water required to be flowing in both the condenser and the chiller cycles to ensure optimum transfer and flooding of pipes. These parameters put together with many smaller others are used to design the initial scope and usage of the system. As mentioned earlier these parameters are fixed when the deisgn is drawn up and are designed for maximum load centric performance. They can be optimised to allow the system to conserve energy.

Energy Consumption
The energy consumed by the system is directly linked to the cost associated with running the system. A system running in its peak and optimum condition will have a noticeably lower running cost than one that is inefficient. The current system has an energy meter to track its energy usage per day and is logged for everyday to check for tracking its usage and energy requirements.

Hall dimensions
Length: 52.5 m Width: 11.3 m Area: 590 sqm Number of windows: 16 Number of windows exposed to sun directly: 8

3. Objectives and Methodology

Objectives
1. Study peak and lowest load patterns. 2. Study equivalent variation in system temperature and load due to variation in above factors. 3. Draw conclusions based on patterns observed above. 4. Attain parameters for algorithm of automation for varying loads. 5. Determine components for scope of improvement and find scope of improvements in listed components. 6. Find components with scope of better maintenance.

Methodology
1. Measure and plot peak and lowest load patterns based on: a. Human heat b. Lighting heat c. Solar gain d. Air swapping 2. Measure and plot equivalent variation in system temperature and load due to variation in above factors. Measure: a. Room temperature b. Wall temperature c. Ambient air temperature d. Wall exposure timing 3. Draw conclusions from attained plots and variations. Design parameters and limits for algorithm of automation of system for varying loads. 4. Determine components for scope of improvement and find scope of improvements in listed components. Check: a. Piping b. Ducts c. Cooling tower d. Pumps 5. Check components for scope of better maintenance. Check for corrosion, leakage, breaking etc.

4. Details of Project Work Completed

The following measurements were taken and plotted from the Group study Hall of the library. This hall was picked as it has the highest influx and activity of people. All of the following data was collected simultaneously but is displayed for better understanding. This is also a portion of the data.
Time Room temp No. of people 09:00 AM 25.4 10 09:30 AM 25.2 43 10:00 AM 25.0 58 10:30 AM 24.5 64 11:00 AM 25.0 101 11:30 AM 24.2 80 12:00 PM 24.9 105 12:30 PM 24.7 127 01:00 PM 25.2 105 01:30 PM 25.4 118 02:00 PM 24.5 109 02:30 PM 24.2 109 03:00 PM 24.4 105 03:30 PM 24.5 102 04:00 PM 24.8 88 04:30 PM 23.6 67 05:00 PM 23.5 75 05:30 PM 23.3 77 06:00 PM 24.5 77 06:30 PM 24.4 100 07:00 PM 24.7 88 07:30 PM 24.9 93 08:00 PM 24.7 82 08:30 PM 24.3 75 09:00 PM 24.1 30 09:30 PM 24.5 38 10:00 PM 26.5 26 10:30 PM 26.6 15 11:00 PM 27.3 11 24.78 75.10

No. of People
140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 9:00 AM 10:00 AM 11:00 AM 12:00 PM 1:00 PM 2:00 PM 3:00 PM 4:00 PM 5:00 PM 6:00 PM 7:00 PM 8:00 PM 9:00 PM 10:00 PM 11:00 PM No. of People

Room Temperature
28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 9:00 AM 10:00 AM 11:00 AM 12:00 PM 1:00 PM 2:00 PM 3:00 PM 4:00 PM 5:00 PM 6:00 PM 7:00 PM 8:00 PM 9:00 PM 10:00 PM 11:00 PM Room temp

Time Room temp No. of people 09:00 AM 25.3 8 09:30 AM 25.3 48 10:00 AM 25.0 60 10:30 AM 24.5 62 11:00 AM 25.0 94 11:30 AM 24.2 80 12:00 PM 24.9 112 12:30 PM 24.8 118 01:00 PM 24.2 84 01:30 PM 24.5 90 02:00 PM 24.9 100 02:30 PM 25.2 98 03:00 PM 24.7 100 03:30 PM 24.8 109 04:00 PM 24.3 82 04:30 PM 23.6 85 05:00 PM 23.5 89 05:30 PM 23.6 91 06:00 PM 24.4 93 06:30 PM 24.9 110 07:00 PM 24.7 95 07:30 PM 24.9 98 08:00 PM 24.7 80 08:30 PM 24.3 80 09:00 PM 24.1 32 09:30 PM 23.8 30 10:00 PM 23.3 22 10:30 PM 23.1 11 11:00 PM 22.5 8 24.36 74.34

No. of People
140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 9:00 AM 10:00 AM 11:00 AM 12:00 PM 1:00 PM 2:00 PM 3:00 PM 4:00 PM 5:00 PM 6:00 PM 7:00 PM 8:00 PM 9:00 PM 10:00 PM 11:00 PM No. of People

Room Temperature
26 25.5 25 24.5 24 23.5 23 22.5 22 21.5 21 9:00 AM 10:00 AM 11:00 AM 12:00 PM 1:00 PM 2:00 PM 3:00 PM 4:00 PM 5:00 PM 6:00 PM 7:00 PM 8:00 PM 9:00 PM 10:00 PM 11:00 PM Room temp

The above data represents measurements from a day when the air conditioning in the hall was active throughout the day and hence can be seen that the room temperature falls where the number of people in the hall reduce. The same way when the AHU is cut-off the temperature rises in the hall and makes it uncomfortable. The thermostat setting for the hall is 24degrees Celsius and thus can be seen to vary around it. At the same time the cooling tower water temperatures were checked to map load on the system and corresponded with the load given by the number of people and the heat the building faade received during the day.

Time 09:00 AM 09:30 AM 10:00 AM 10:30 AM 11:00 AM 11:30 AM 12:00 PM 12:30 PM 01:00 PM 01:30 PM 02:00 PM 02:30 PM 03:00 PM 03:30 PM 04:00 PM 04:30 PM 05:00 PM 05:30 PM 06:00 PM 06:30 PM 07:00 PM 07:30 PM 08:00 PM 08:30 PM 09:00 PM 09:30 PM 10:00 PM 10:30 PM 11:00 PM

Air temp Air temp from from vent vent turned off left on 17.2 17.2 16.7 16.7 17 17 16.8 16.9 17.2 17.3 17.5 17.1 16.9 16.9 16.6 16.6 16.9 16.9 17 17.1 19 17 16.5 16.7 16.9 16.9 17 16.9 17 16.8 16.9 16.9 16.5 16.5 16.4 16.4 16.8 19.3 16.8 19.2 16.8 19.2 16.7 19.7 16.7 19.6 16.8 19.5 16.9 19.6 16.8 19.6 16.9 19.5 16.8 19.6 16.8 19.5 16.92 17.94

AHU with Cooling

19.5 19 18.5 18 17.5 17 16.5 16 15.5 15 9:00 AM 10:00 AM 11:00 AM 12:00 PM 1:00 PM 2:00 PM 3:00 PM 4:00 PM 5:00 PM 6:00 PM 7:00 PM 8:00 PM 9:00 PM 10:00 PM 11:00 PM Air temp from vent left on

AHU cut-off
20 19.5 19 18.5 18 17.5 17 16.5 16 15.5 15 9:00 AM 10:00 AM 11:00 AM 12:00 PM 1:00 PM 2:00 PM 3:00 PM 4:00 PM 5:00 PM 6:00 PM 7:00 PM 8:00 PM 9:00 PM 10:00 PM 11:00 PM Air temp from vent turned off

The AHU cut-off functioning blower air temperature is approximately 19 degrees Celsius and can be seen in the above graphs. This shows and explains the marked increase in the room temperature as the heat from the walls and the people could not be compensated enough to maintain the room at a comfortable temperature. Increasing the performance of the system is a major factor but human comfort cannot be ignored. Thus the automation system would balance the needs of both together and essentially allow the system to be cost effective and useful.
The following data shows the heat received by the building and how the variation in temperature inside the building can be noticed and compared to the AHU cut-off. It also shows glass temperature and exposure to the hall to heat from the glass.

Time 09:00 AM 09:30 AM 10:00 AM 10:30 AM 11:00 AM 11:30 AM 12:00 PM 12:30 PM 01:00 PM 01:30 PM 02:00 PM 02:30 PM 03:00 PM 03:30 PM 04:00 PM 04:30 PM 05:00 PM 05:30 PM 06:00 PM 06:30 PM 07:00 PM 07:30 PM 08:00 PM 08:30 PM 09:00 PM 09:30 PM 10:00 PM 10:30 PM 11:00 PM

Inner 27.1 27.2 26.88 26.7 27.11 27.3 27.3 27.5 26.8 27.4 27.3 27.2 27.3 27.4 27.2 27.4 27.3 27.3 27.4 28.4 28 28 27.8 27.2 27.3 26.9 26.6 26.4 26.1 27.23413793

outer 30.1 34.9 36 36.6 36.2 36.4 36 34.6 35.2 34.4 34.5 34.3 34.3 34 34 33.2 32.8 31.6 31.6 31.6 30.9 30.3 30.3 30.3 29.5 29.2 28.8 28.4 28 32.68965517

glass temperature 28.28571429 28.6 28.81428571 29.48571429 29.9 30.1 30.2 29.8 28.7 29.5 30 30 29.5 29.1 29 28.2 28 28.3 27.2 28.6 28.2 28 27.8 27.3 27 27.5 27.1 26.98 26.86 28.55261084

Chart Title
38 36 34 32 30 28 26 24 22 20

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Inner Wall

Outer Wall

Window Glass

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The heat given off by the lighting in the library hall was also considerable as the grill holding it showed a temperature of nearly 42degrees in an air condition environment. These fixtures were also active throughout the day and hence contribute to the heat gained by the system. However, during day time, in the presence of sufficient natural light the system would lose less energy to these fixtures. If however these fixtures must be kept active, tinting of the windows would serve as an alternative to reduce heat loss from the glass. While studying and measuring these systems, it was noticed that certain parts of the system needed thorough maintenance and the piping did in fact have scope for improvement. The Plant is located behind the library and is also exposed to sunlight till almost 2:00pm. The cooling towers, which are on top of the plant thus take direct heat from the sun for a significant portion of the day, also when the load inside in maximum. The piping from the towers that leads into the plant housing, though insulated, is painted black. The outer temperature of this piping, when measured, was nearly 48 degrees Celsius which leads to the conclusion that heat lost by the water in the tower would be slightly regained in the piping. This was confirmed by the temperature difference in the water in the tower and the temperature sensor checking the water as it enters the condenser and showed a difference of about 0.2-0.4 degrees. As the length of the piping is not significantly long enough for such losses, the insulation is thus not effective. The cooling towers were also facing corrosion and had a great degree of eutrophication lining the upper and lower tank. This was noticeable in the first and less in the consecutive tank. The algae in the system would causing clogging and lining along the pipes would corrode and also become ineffective for heat transfer in the system.

5. Future Work Plan

The future plan of action is to take into consideration the variation of loads from other black and thus check for the total energy consumption from the plant, as one section cannot dictate the needs of the entire plant. The NLH and Innovation centre would come under the study and similar load variation and component survey would be done to understand the true load patterns for the system. Once a pattern has emerged from the study, an algorithm that defines the parameters and places of focus for each system will be defined to understand a possible reduction in the energy consumed by the system and allow to reduce the cost of running the system and increase the efficiency. Also once the components that can be effectively changed are suggested, a possible cost-benefit analysis for the same can be suggested.

6. Conclusion
As this system itself shows scope for improvement, there is scope for many older systems and newer systems to be altered based to suit needs of the lower end of the usage spectrum to provide energy efficient solutions for future HVAC plants. Proper maintenance of a plant is extremely necessary to ensure efficient functioning. The components must also be optimised to complement the system.

7. References
http://www.brighthubengineering.com/hvac/859-factors-affecting-hvac-designing-and-heatload-calculations/ http://www.teriin.org/ResUpdate/reep/ch_5.pdf http://www.intertek.com/hvac/performance-testing/ http://built-envi.com/portfolio/hvac-system-operational-characteristics/ http://www.brighthubengineering.com/hvac/26100-hvac-system-what-is-a-zone-partone/?cid=parsely_rec#imgn_1

Details of Organisation:
Manipal Institute Of Technology
(A Constituent Institute Of Manipal University)

Manipal 576104, Karnataka, India

Project Guide Details:

Dr. U Achyuth Kini Department of Mechanical Engineering Phone number: +91 944 933 1238

Signature of Guide