FIELD TESTING OF ADVANCED VENTILATION CONTROLS FOR VARIABLE AIR VOLUME SYSTEMS

Results from the experimental phase of a larger research project are p resented for three promising ventilation controls capable of meeting t he ventilation requirements of ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 62-1989 (ASHRAE 19 89) with low energy use. Each control dynamically adjusted the outdoor air (OA) requirement based upon occupancy and measured building zone loads. Credit for unvitiated air from over-ventilated spaces was also taken in each control. Controls 2 and 3 used primary airflow rate as a n optimization variable to decrease the required OA flow rate, thus re ducing the energy needed to condition OA. The supply air temperature i n control 2 was a constant, but was an additional optimization variabl e in control 3. The three ventilation controls were achieved by the si mulation/optimization algorithms resident in a stand-alone personal co mputer (PC) on site. A total of 24 days of performance data were colle cted. Typical day data sets for each control are presented in some det ail. The objective of the experimental phase was to verify the reliabi lity of the simulation/optimization algorithms resident in the on-site PC. That objective was met for each of the three controls since excel lent agreement was found between the measured data and the control alg orithm predictions. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd.