Abstract
One of the most important characteristics contributing to the thermal management efficiency of commercial, industrial, institutional or home environments is the optimal functioning of HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) systems. In addition to using supervisor controllers for balancing comfort level in a building, the majority of today’s HVACs employ nonlinear time variance controllers when dealing with a variety of disturbances. This paper investigates both current and potential HVAC systems at Memorial University’s S. J. Carew building, St. John’s, Newfoundland. The study investigates the viability of algorithm-based supervisor fuzzy logic controllers (SFLC) for the control of the building’s four air-handling units (AHUs) used to manage the interior environment. Along with temperature, the SFLCs also control the AHUs’ fan speeds and CO2 concentrations modifying hot water and air flow rates. This work presents models of damper positions, fan speeds and globe valves that have been built in accordance with current rates of air and hot water flow in the S. J. Carew building. Based on these specifications, a novel method of SFLC adaptation using fuzzy rules has been devised. The novel system aims to better balance the performance level of the Carew building’s HVAC system on a floor-by-floor basis. The overall results indicate better overall thermal comfort levels and enhanced cost-effectiveness when using the SFLC redesign.
Highlights
The purpose of HVAC systems is to create comfortable and cost-efficient internal environments within structures
Appropriate control systems are required, such as mathematics-based HVACs controllers. These approaches, which use input/output variable data to determine the parameters of individual systems, are able to refine and enhance HVAC systems through the process of system identification (SI) (ASHRAE, 2005) [1]
In developed countries, mitigating pollution levels is almost as important as cost-effectiveness when it comes to heating and cooling systems, so there has been a recent surge in research that investigates combining renewable energy production with state-of-the-art HVAC systems [5]
Summary
The purpose of HVAC systems is to create comfortable and cost-efficient internal environments within structures. Numerous research studies, textbooks and journal articles have investigated various issues of HVAC operation and control, including the supervisor control technique (e.g., Honeywell [13]; Levenhagen and Spethmann [14] ; Wang and Jin [15]; Zaheer-uddin and Zheng [16]; Hordeski [17]; Haines and Hittle [18]; Nassif et al [19]; Wang [20]; etc.) They classify the primary supervisory control approaches that are employed in HVAC systems into four different types of supervisory control methods: 1) model-based, 2) model-free, 3) performance map-based, and 4) hybrid [21]. The fuzzy supervisor might be given control over aspects of energy savings that better balance a building’s overall heating and cooling system’s performance levels, taking the needs of each floor into consideration
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