The variable air volume (VAV) system is the most popular form of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system used in commercial buildings. Researchers and engineers often use VAV systems as a reference when evaluating new technologies and systems or comparing design options. However, VAV system performance varies significantly, in part because of variations among VAV system controls, so, when analyzing use cases, it is critical to accurately represent system controls in order to accurately define system performance. Unfortunately, no existing literature documents standard VAV system controls for this purpose. This paper aims to remedy this omission by characterizing the variations in VAV system controls and proposing an approach to representing VAV system baseline performance. We used EnergyPlus to model variation among VAV system controls. We use the medium-size office reference-building model developed by the U.S. Department of Energy to demonstrate the impact of variations among controls in two U.S. climate zones and sort system performance into “good,” “average,” and “poor” categories.
BT - Energy and Buildings DA - 01/2017 DO - 10.1016/j.enbuild.2016.11.031 LA - eng N2 -The variable air volume (VAV) system is the most popular form of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system used in commercial buildings. Researchers and engineers often use VAV systems as a reference when evaluating new technologies and systems or comparing design options. However, VAV system performance varies significantly, in part because of variations among VAV system controls, so, when analyzing use cases, it is critical to accurately represent system controls in order to accurately define system performance. Unfortunately, no existing literature documents standard VAV system controls for this purpose. This paper aims to remedy this omission by characterizing the variations in VAV system controls and proposing an approach to representing VAV system baseline performance. We used EnergyPlus to model variation among VAV system controls. We use the medium-size office reference-building model developed by the U.S. Department of Energy to demonstrate the impact of variations among controls in two U.S. climate zones and sort system performance into “good,” “average,” and “poor” categories.
PY - 2017 SP - 166 EP - 175 ST - Energy and Buildings T2 - Energy and Buildings TI - Characterizing variations in variable air volume system controls VL - 135 SN - 03787788 ER -