Industry-wide methods of assessing duct leakage are based on duct pressurization tests, and focus on "high pressure" ducts. Even though "low pressure" ducts can be a large fraction of the system and tend to be leaky, few guidelines or construction specifications require testing these ducts. We report here on the measured leakage flows from ten large commercial duct systems at operating conditions: three had low leakage (less than 5% of duct inlet flow), and seven had substantial leakage (9 to 26%). By comparing these flows with leakage flows estimated using the industry method, we show that the latter method by itself is not a reliable indicator of whole-system leakage flow, and that leakage flows need to be measured.
BT - 26th AIVC International Conference C1 -1.1
C2 - LBNL-58252 CY - Brussels, Belgium, 21-23 September 2005 LA - eng N2 -Industry-wide methods of assessing duct leakage are based on duct pressurization tests, and focus on "high pressure" ducts. Even though "low pressure" ducts can be a large fraction of the system and tend to be leaky, few guidelines or construction specifications require testing these ducts. We report here on the measured leakage flows from ten large commercial duct systems at operating conditions: three had low leakage (less than 5% of duct inlet flow), and seven had substantial leakage (9 to 26%). By comparing these flows with leakage flows estimated using the industry method, we show that the latter method by itself is not a reliable indicator of whole-system leakage flow, and that leakage flows need to be measured.
PP - Brussels, Belgium, 21-23 September 2005 PY - 2005 SP - pp. 83 EP - 88 T2 - 26th AIVC International Conference T3 - 26th AIVC International Conference TI - Rationale For Measuring Duct Leakage Flows in Large Commercial Buildings ER -