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Contents
1 Introduction .................................................................. 2
2 Historical Weather Data ............................................... 4
3 Disclaimer .................................................................... 5
4 Conflicts and Deviations .............................................. 5
5 References .................................................................. 5
6 Definitions .................................................................... 6
7 Psychometrics ............................................................. 6
8 Composition of Dry and Moist Air ................................ 6
9 Selected Saudi Arabia Cities Standard
Atmospheric Pressure and Temperature ..................... 7
10 Thermodynamic Properties of Moist Air ....................... 8
11 Thermodynamic Properties of Water at Saturation ...... 9
12 Humidity Parameters ................................................. 10
13 Degree Days .............................................................. 15
1 Introduction
Hourly weather data sets are specifically required for use in building energy simulations.
Coherent meteorological data are always needed in HVAC system predicting energy
consumption and base line development or measurements and verification assessment in
nonindustrial buildings.
Accordingly, data from Saudi Aramco meteorological stations for five different cities
within KSA were analyzed to develop bin weather data, hourly data and Cooling
Degree Days/Heating Degree Days calculator tool.
Above selection was based on data availability for more than 10 Years from Saudi
Aramco - Environmental Protection Department EPD.
Page 2 of 17
Document Responsibility: Energy Systems Optimization Standards Committee SABP-A-064
Issue Date: 24 May 2016
Next Planned Update: TBD Bin Weather Data Generator Tool for Energy Calculation
DRAFT
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Document Responsibility: Energy Systems Optimization Standards Committee SABP-A-064
Issue Date: 24 May 2016
Next Planned Update: TBD Bin Weather Data Generator Tool for Energy Calculation
The latitudes/longitudes and elevations for the selected cities is as per Table 1 below.
The data were analyzed and consolidated in the attached electronic excel based tool in
Appendix A that lists the following:
1. Bin Weather Data showing the number of hours of occurrence per day for each of
the following parameters:
o DBT Dry Bulb Temperature, C;
o WBT Wet Bulb Temperature, C;
o RH Relative Humidity;
o W Humidity Ratio kg/kg;
o H Enthalpy;
o Specific Volume m3/kg;
o Dew Point C.
2. Hourly data per year (8760) readings for the same parameters mentioned in item 1
above;
3. Degree Days CDD and HDD Calculator. In this particular work sheets the tools
calculates the CDD/HDD based on the user input of the base temperature.
The historical raw weather data were provided by the Environmental Protection Dept.
EPD. For each City mentioned in Section 1 above, the following data were provided
on hourly basis for the past 15 years on average:
1. DBT Dry Bulb Temperature;
2. RH Relative Humidity;
3. Dew Point;
4. Barometric Pressure.
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Document Responsibility: Energy Systems Optimization Standards Committee SABP-A-064
Issue Date: 24 May 2016
Next Planned Update: TBD Bin Weather Data Generator Tool for Energy Calculation
The above data were analyzed followed by extensive processing to generate other
weather parameter mentioned in Section 1.
3 Disclaimer
This Best Practice is intended only to provide guidelines for Saudi Aramco engineers
and subcontractors and shall not be considered as a replacement for the Mandatory
Saudi Aramco Engineering Requirements or Global Codes and standards. The use of
this Best Practice does not relieve the Engineers or Contractors from their responsibility
or duty to confirm and verify the accuracy of any information presented, and from his
contractual liability to expose his capability to manufacture equipment with the required
safety, quality control, accuracy in meeting delivery dates and field support aspects that
conform to Mandatory Saudi Aramco Engineering Requirements. The use of the
information or material contained herein will not guarantee that the resulting product
satisfies the applicable requirements of Saudi Aramco Standards. Saudi Aramco
assumes no responsibility or liability whatsoever for any reliance on the information
presented herein in accordance with this Best Practice document. Due to urbane
microclimate condition in the cities the data that derived from Ambient Air Quality and
Meteorology Monitoring Network AMMNET is most likely not to be representative
for the cities.
If there is a conflict between this Best Practice and other standards or specifications,
please contact the Chairman of the Energy Systems Optimization Standards Committee.
5 References
The requirements contained in the following documents apply to the extent specified in
this best practice:
Unless stated otherwise, all Standards, Specifications and Codes referenced in this Best
Practice shall be the latest issued (including revisions, addenda and supplements) and
are considered a part of this Best Practice.
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Document Responsibility: Energy Systems Optimization Standards Committee SABP-A-064
Issue Date: 24 May 2016
Next Planned Update: TBD Bin Weather Data Generator Tool for Energy Calculation
6 Definitions
Cooling Degree Day (Annual): The summation of the number of Celsius degrees for
which the mean daily temperature is above selected base temperature, e.g., 18.33C
(65F) for a calendar year.
Heating Degree Days (Annual): The summation of the number of Celsius degrees for
which the mean daily temperature is below selected base temperature , e.g., 15.5C
(60F) for a calendar year.
Section 10 lists other definitions and abbreviations of main parameters used in this Best
Practice.
7 Psychometrics
Psychometrics, deals with the thermodynamic properties of moist air and uses these
properties to analyze conditions and processes involving moist air.
Parallel to ASHRAE Fundamental Handbook, this Best Practice discusses the perfect
gas relations to estimate other parameters as illustrated in Section 11 hereinafter.
Atmospheric air contains many gaseous components as well as water vapor and
miscellaneous contaminants (e.g., smoke, pollen, and gaseous pollutants not normally
present in free air far from pollution sources).
Dry air exists when all water vapor and contaminants have been removed from
atmospheric air. The composition of dry air is relatively constant, but small variations in
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Document Responsibility: Energy Systems Optimization Standards Committee SABP-A-064
Issue Date: 24 May 2016
Next Planned Update: TBD Bin Weather Data Generator Tool for Energy Calculation
the amounts of individual components occur with time, geographic location, and altitude.
The gas constant for dry air, based on the carbon-12 scale, is
Moist air is a binary (two-component) mixture of dry air and water vapor. The amount
of water vapor in moist air varies from zero (dry air) to a maximum that depends on
temperature and pressure.
The latter condition refers to saturation, a state of neutral equilibrium between moist air
and the condensed water phase (liquid or solid).
The temperature and barometric pressure of atmospheric air vary considerably with
altitude as well as with local geographic and weather conditions. The standard
atmosphere gives a standard of reference for estimating properties at various altitudes.
At sea level, standard temperature is 15C; standard barometric pressure is 101.325 kPa.
The temperature is assumed to decrease linearly with increasing altitude throughout the
troposphere (lower atmosphere), and to be constant in the lower reaches of the
stratosphere. The lower atmosphere is assumed to consist of dry air that behaves as a
perfect gas.
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Document Responsibility: Energy Systems Optimization Standards Committee SABP-A-064
Issue Date: 24 May 2016
Next Planned Update: TBD Bin Weather Data Generator Tool for Energy Calculation
For the purpose of this Best Practice the following parameters Thermodynamic
Properties of Moist Air shall be described in details:
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Document Responsibility: Energy Systems Optimization Standards Committee SABP-A-064
Issue Date: 24 May 2016
Next Planned Update: TBD Bin Weather Data Generator Tool for Energy Calculation
The saturation pressure over ice for the temperature range of -100 to 0C is given by:
Due to Saudi Arabia specific weather conditions that the outside air temperature is
mostly above 0C; thus, the above equation (1) shall not be used.
The saturation pressure over liquid water for the temperature range of 0 to 200C is
given by the following equation:
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Document Responsibility: Energy Systems Optimization Standards Committee SABP-A-064
Issue Date: 24 May 2016
Next Planned Update: TBD Bin Weather Data Generator Tool for Energy Calculation
12 Humidity Parameters
W = Mw /Mda ........(3)
W equals the mole fraction ratio xw /xda multiplied by the ratio of molecular
masses (18.015 268/28.966 0.622):
Specific humidity is the ratio of the mass of water vapor to total mass of the
moist air sample:
= W /(1 + W) ....(6)
dv = Mw/V ....(7)
Density of a moist air mixture is the ratio of total mass to total volume:
where v is the moist air specific volume, m3/kgda, as defined by Equation (28).
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Document Responsibility: Energy Systems Optimization Standards Committee SABP-A-064
Issue Date: 24 May 2016
Next Planned Update: TBD Bin Weather Data Generator Tool for Energy Calculation
Saturation humidity ratio Ws(t, p) is the humidity ratio of moist air saturated
with respect to water (or ice) at the same temperature t and pressure p.
= W/Wst,p ..(9)
Relative humidity also referred as RH in the excel based tool is the ratio
of the mole fraction of water vapor xw in a given moist air sample to the mole
fraction xws in an air sample saturated at the same temperature and pressure:
xw/xwst,p ..(10)
The value of the above parameter is given in this Best Practice; thus, no
calculation was conducted.
Section 12.4 provides further details on dew point and thermodynamic wet bulb
temperature.
When moist air is considered a mixture of independent perfect gases (i.e., dry air
and water vapor), each is assumed to obey the perfect gas equation of state as
follows:
Dry air: PdaV = nda R T ..(13)
Water vapor: PwV = nw R T ..(14)
where
Pda = partial pressure of dry air
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Document Responsibility: Energy Systems Optimization Standards Committee SABP-A-064
Issue Date: 24 May 2016
Next Planned Update: TBD Bin Weather Data Generator Tool for Energy Calculation
PV=nRT ..(15)
Or
where P = Pda + Pw is the total mixture pressure and n = nda + nw is the total
number of moles in the mixture. From equation 13 to 16, the mole fractions of
dry air and water vapor are, respectively:
and,
From Equations (4), (17), and (18), the humidity ratio W of moist air is:
The term Pws represents the saturation pressure of water vapor in the absence of
air at the given temperature t. This pressure Pws (equation 2) is a function only
of temperature and differs slightly from the vapor pressure of water in saturated
moist air.
Accordingly:
Pw = . Pws ..(22)
Page 12 of 17
Document Responsibility: Energy Systems Optimization Standards Committee SABP-A-064
Issue Date: 24 May 2016
Next Planned Update: TBD Bin Weather Data Generator Tool for Energy Calculation
The specific volume v of a moist air mixture is expressed in terms of a unit mass
of dry air:
where V is the total volume of the mixture, Mda is the total mass of dry air, and
nda is the number of moles of dry air. By Equations (13) and (24), with the
relation P = Pda + Pw
where
V = specific volume, m3/kgda
t = dry-bulb temperature, C
W = humidity ratio, kgw/kgda (equation 20)
P = total pressure, kPa (given)
The enthalpy of mixture of perfect gases equal the sum of the individual partial
enthalpies of the components; therefore, the specific enthalpy of moist air can be
written as follows:
h = hda + W. hg ..........(29)
where
hda is the specific enthalpy for dry air in KJ/kgda and hg is the specific
enthalpy for saturated water vapor in KJ/kgw at the misxtures temperature.
As an approximation:
hda 1.006 . t .............(30)
hg = 2501 + 1.86 . t .....................(31)
Page 13 of 17
Document Responsibility: Energy Systems Optimization Standards Committee SABP-A-064
Issue Date: 24 May 2016
Next Planned Update: TBD Bin Weather Data Generator Tool for Energy Calculation
For any state of moist air, a temperature t* exists at which liquid (or solid) water
evaporates into the air to bring it to saturation at exactly this same temperature and
total pressure. During adiabatic saturation, saturated air is expelled at a
temperature equal to that of the injected water. In this constant-pressure process.
The wet bulb temperature in this Best Practice was calculated from the
following equation:
t*=t.atan(0.151977.(+8.313659)2))+atan(t+)-atan(-
1.676331)+0.00391838. ()3/2 .atan(0.023101. ) - 4.686035
.........................................................................................(33)
where
t is the dry-bulb temperature in C,
is the relative humidity in %.
Equation (33) was recommended by EPD, the main reference for this equation is
listed in section 5.3.
Note: Equation (33) does not provide exact results if used directly. Thus, additional
steps were taken to correct the results using regression analysis; however, the
error of the calculated Wet Bulb Temperature may vary between 0 to 5%.
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Document Responsibility: Energy Systems Optimization Standards Committee SABP-A-064
Issue Date: 24 May 2016
Next Planned Update: TBD Bin Weather Data Generator Tool for Energy Calculation
The dew-point temperature td of moist air was provided by the EPD; thus, no
calculation was conducted.
Notes:
Appendix A:
used equations 1 to 33 and weather data from the EPD (Section 2 above) to
populate the bin and annual hourly data.
shall NOT be used in modeling softwares. For that then specific weather data
shall be used as recommended by the software developers.
13 Degree Days
Degree days is the standard deviation of average daily temperature, C. This parameter
is useful to calculate heating and cooling degree-days to any base. The following
sections illustrates the estimation of Degree-Days.
The daily cooling degree-days(CDDs) are defined as the difference between the
mean temperature and the base cooling temperature as given by Equation (34).
When the mean temperature is below the base temperature then the cooling
degree-day for that day is zero.
where Tb is the base temperature is also defined as (it is the balance point
between needing the heating or cooling system to operate or no) the base
temperature may come in different values, e.g., (10, 18.3C, ..etc.), and Tm is
the daily mean air temperature and is calculated as;
where Tmax and Tmin are the daily maximum and minimum air temperatures.
For a certain period of time (weekly, monthly, seasonal, annual, etc.),
accumulated cooling degree-days (ACDDs) in Appendix A are calculated using
the following equation:
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Document Responsibility: Energy Systems Optimization Standards Committee SABP-A-064
Issue Date: 24 May 2016
Next Planned Update: TBD Bin Weather Data Generator Tool for Energy Calculation
where N is the period of time or the number of days in the year in this particular
work sheet.
The corresponding number of days can be used to define the length of the
cooling season for the whole year when Tb is less than Tm.
The daily heating degree-day (HDD) is defined as the deviation of the mean
temperature from a heating base temperature as given by Equation (37).
When the mean temperature is greater than the base temperature the degree-day
for that day is zero.
Appendix A is calculating the daily average based on the hourly readings per
day rather than taking two readings of maximum/minimum;
There is no exact requirements for selecting the base temperature Tb, as this
parameter is a function from cooling and heating system mode operation
versus average space temperature and buildings characteristics. Thus, for
more precise selection in any building that is under study then data loggers
must be installed for a predefined period of time followed by regression analysis
to choose the closest Tb. As a start for base temperature selection within SA
buildings it is suggested to use 18.33C and 20C for cooling and heating
respectively, however the project engineer must verify these figures based on
actual building data and conditions.
Revision Summary
24 May 2016 New Saudi Aramco Best Practice where data from Saudi Aramco meteorological stations
from five different cities within KSA were analyzed to develop bin weather data, hourly data
and Cooling Degree Days/Heating Degree Days calculator tool.
Page 16 of 17
Document Responsibility: Energy Systems Optimization Standards Committee SABP-A-064
Issue Date: 24 May 2016
Next Planned Update: TBD Bin Weather Data Generator Tool for Energy Calculation
Microsoft Excel
Macro-Enabled Worksheet
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