23 research outputs found
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Comparison of construction and energy costs for radiant vs. VAV systems in the California Bay Area
The goal of this study was to perform a design stage cost analysis comparing a selected radiant building against an identical building with a traditional variable air volume (VAV) system. Major findings from the cost estimates include:• The radiant HVAC design has a total cost of 29.9/ft2 for the VAV design, representing a 9.8/ft2 higher than that for the VAV design.• Since labor rates are higher in the San Francisco Bay Area, for the estimated national average labor rate, the premium for radiant is $6.8/ft2, compared to the VAV system. The high installed cost for the radiant equipment is partly a reflection of the current radiant manufacturers’ pricing strategies and the contractors’ bidding practices. The radiant market is relatively small and immature in the United States, especially compared to the well-established VAV market. Alternative design approaches are discussed that may reduce first costs and/or energy costs. Energy models of the two designs (radiant and VAV) were developed in EnergyPlus to evaluate the corresponding energy and comfort performance. In the VAV system model, the controls are generally based on the recently published ASHRAE Guideline 36 (ASHRAE, 2018), which provides high performance sequences of operation for VAV systems. However, for the hybrid radiant slab and DOAS system, there are no well-established control sequences readily available. The annual simulation results show that the total site HVAC energy use is 16.2% higher for the radiant system (2.9 kBtu/ft2) than the optimized VAV design (2.5 kBtu/ft2). The report contains further discussion of opportunities to improve the energy performance of radiant systems. For example, in mild climates, such as the Bay Area in California, radiant designs should take advantage of the benefits of free cooling as much as possible either with airside or waterside economizers
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Optimizing Radiant Systems for Energy Efficiency and Comfort
Radiant cooling and heating systems provide an opportunity to achieve significant energy savings, peak demand reduction, load shifting, and thermal comfort improvements compared to conventional all-air systems. As a result, application of these systems has increased in recent years, particularly in zero-net-energy (ZNE) and other advanced low-energy buildings. Despite this growth, completed installations to date have demonstrated that controls and operation of radiant systems can be challenging due to a lack of familiarity within the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) design and operations professions, often involving new concepts (particularly related to the slow response in high thermal mass radiant systems). To achieve the significant reductions in building energy use proposed by California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC’s) Energy Efficiency Strategic Plan that all new non-residential buildings be ZNE by 2030, it is critical that new technologies that will play a major role in reaching this goal be applied in an effective manner. This final report describes the results of a comprehensive multi-faceted research project that was undertaken to address these needed enhancements to radiant technology by developing the following: (1) sizing and operation tools (currently unavailable on the market) to provide reliable methods to take full advantage of the radiant systems to provide improved energy performance while maintaining comfortable conditions, (2) energy, cost, and occupant comfort data to provide real world examples of energy efficient, affordable, and comfortable buildings using radiant systems, and (3) Title-24 and ASHRAE Standards advancements to enhance the building industry’s ability to achieve significant energy efficiency goals in California with radiant systems. The research team used a combination of full-scale fundamental laboratory experiments, whole-building energy simulations and simplified tool development, and detailed field studies and control demonstrations to assemble the new information, guidance and tools necessary to help the building industry achieve significant energy efficiency goals for radiant systems in California
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Design and Control of Hydronic Radiant Cooling Systems
Improving energy efficiency in the Heating Ventilation and Air conditioning (HVAC) systems in buildings is critical to achieve the energy reduction in the building sector, which consumes 41% of all primary energy produced in the United States, and was responsible for nearly half of U.S. CO2 emissions. Based on a report by the New Building Institute (NBI), when HVAC systems are used, about half of the zero net energy (ZNE) buildings report using a radiant cooling/heating system, often in conjunction with ground source heat pumps. Radiant systems differ from air systems in the main heat transfer mechanism used to remove heat from a space, and in their control characteristics when responding to changes in control signals and room thermal conditions. This dissertation investigates three related design and control topics: cooling load calculations, cooling capacity estimation, and control for the heavyweight radiant systems. These three issues are fundamental to the development of accurate design/modeling tools, relevant performance testing methods, and ultimately the realization of the potential energy benefits of radiant systems.Cooling load calculations are a crucial step in designing any HVAC system. In the current standards, cooling load is defined and calculated independent of HVAC system type. In this dissertation, I present research evidence that sensible zone cooling loads for radiant systems are different from cooling loads for traditional air systems. Energy simulations, in EnergyPlus, and laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate the heat transfer dynamics in spaces conditioned by radiant and air systems. The results show that the magnitude of the cooling load difference between the two systems ranges from 7-85%, and radiant systems remove heat faster than air systems. For the experimental tested conditions, 75-82% of total heat gain was removed by radiant system during the period when the heater (simulating the heat gain) was on, while for air system, 61-63% were removed. From a heat transfer perspective, the differences are mainly because the chilled surfaces directly remove part of the radiant heat gains from a zone, thereby bypassing the time-delay effect caused by the interaction of radiant heat gain with non-active thermal mass in air systems. The major conclusions based on these findings are: 1) there are important limitations in the definition of cooling load for a mixing air system described in Chapter 18 of ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals when applied to radiant systems; 2) due to the obvious mismatch between how radiant heat transfer is handled in traditional cooling load calculation methods compared to its central role in radiant cooling systems, this dissertation provides improvements for the current cooling load calculation method based on the Heat Balance procedure. The Radiant Time Series method is not appropriate for radiant system applications. The findings also directly apply to the selection of space heat transfer modeling algorithms that are part of all energy modeling software.Cooling capacity estimation is another critical step in a design project. The above mentioned findings and a review of the existing methods indicates that current radiant system cooling capacity estimation methods fail to take into account incident shortwave radiation generated by solar and lighting in the calculation process. This causes a significant underestimation (up to 150% for some instances) of floor cooling capacity when solar load is dominant. Building performance simulations were conducted to verify this hypothesis and quantify the impacts of solar for different design scenarios. A new simplified method was proposed to improve the predictability of the method described in ISO 11855 when solar radiation is present.The dissertation also compares the energy and comfort benefits of the model-based predictive control (MPC) method with a fine-tuned heuristic control method when applied to a heavyweight embedded surface system. A first order dynamic model of a radiant slab system was developed for implementation in model predictive controllers. A calibrated EnergyPlus model of a typical office building in California was used as a testbed for the comparison. The results indicated that MPC is able to reduce the cooling tower energy consumption by 55% and pumping power consumption by 26%, while maintaining equivalent or even better thermal comfort conditions.In summary, the dissertation work has: (1) provided clear evidence that the fundamental heat transfer mechanisms differ between radiant and air systems. These findings have important implications for the development of accurate and reliable design and energy simulation tools; (2) developed practical design methods and guidance to aid practicing engineers who are designing radiant systems; and (3) outlined future research and design tools need to advance the state-of-knowledge and design and operating guidelines for radiant systems
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Critical review of water based radiant cooling system design methods
Interests in radiant cooling systems have increased in recent years. There is, however, no standardized method for radiant system design that is broadly accepted by the building industry. Through literature review, twelve surveys and eight interviews with leading practitioners, this paper summarizes the design methods documented in the guidelines, assesses the state of the industry, and identifies potential gaps and limitations in current design practice. The findings include: 1) design guidelines provide a wide range of approaches for cooling load calculation and system sizing; 2) most practitioners calculate cooling load for radiant systems the same way as for air systems, with only 23% of the respondents reported using dynamic simulation tools that have the capability to model radiant systems for cooling load estimation; 3) 46% of the respondents reported that steady state analysis methods/tools were used for radiant system sizing. 
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Cooling load differences between radiant and air systems
Unlike the case of air systems where the cooling load is purely convective, the cooling load for radiant systems consists of both convective and radiant components.
The main objectives of this energy simulation study were to investigate whether the same design cooling load calculation methods can be used for radiant and air systems by studying the magnitude of the cooling load differences between radiant and air systems over a range of configurations and to suggest potential improvements in current design guidelines. Simulation results show that 1) zone level 24-hour total cooling energy of radiant systems can be 5-15% higher than air systems due to differences in conduction load through the building envelope; 2) peak cooling load at the radiant system hydronic level can be 7-31% higher than air system for zones without solar load. The differences can increase up to 93% at the hydronic level for floor system in zones with solar load; 3) the cooling load differences between the two systems originate from: a) radiant cooling surface(s) directly remove part of the radiant heat gain and reduce heat accumulation in the building mass; b) only part of the convective heat gain becomes instantaneous cooling load. This indicates that simplified methods such as Radiant Time Series Method is not appropriate for cooling load calculation in radiant system design. Radiant systems should be modeled using a dynamic simulation tool that is capable of capturing radiant heat transfer for cooling load calculation. 
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Experimental comparison of zone cooling load between radiant and air systems
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New method for the design of radiant floor cooling systems with solar radiation
Impacts of solar shortwave radiation are not taken into account in the standardized design methods in the current radiant system design guidelines. Therefore, the current methods are not applicable for cases where incident solar is significant. The goals of this study are to: 1) use dynamic simulation tools to investigate the impacts of solar radiation on floor cooling capacity, and 2) develop a new simplified method to calculate radiant floor cooling capacity when direct solar radiation is present. We used EnergyPlus to assess the impacts of solar for different design conditions. The simulation results showed that the actual cooling capacities are in average 1.44 times higher than the values calculated with the ISO 11855 method, and 1.2 times higher than the ASHRAE method. A simplified regression model is developed to improve the predictability of ISO methods. The new model calculates the increased capacity as a function of the zone transmitted solar and the characteristic temperature difference between the hydronic loop and room operative temperature